Your Forum Review
First Impressions & Appearance - (Out of 20)
When visiting the forums for the first time I quickly became over whelmed. The overall feel of the design seems to be very cluttered with information. The text itself is very hard to read on a dark background specially the moving text at the top of the forums. However the actual design itself in my opinion fits the genre your forum is currently about.
The chatroom feature is okay.. But really unneeded as you could just add a site shoutbox to the forums and it would act as the same feature. Another observation is you have two
chatrooms? is this really needed. I mean I can't find a way this would be. The header could be a bit touched up as well, it doesn't stretch as it should a bit longer to fill in those blank
header spots.
Overall though for a Hogwarts fan I believe that those users will enjoy the look and feel minus the clutter very well. As to me it fits the thought of Harry Potter.
(Scored 4/20)
Site Layout - (Out of 20)
The layout didn't really grab my attention mainly because when first viewing the website I was instantly giving
tons of information all at once. I think you could cut down on this or make your portal if you can a bit more unique and organized. As when first viewing and then coming back that is a lot of content to read and the text overall doesn't fit well with the black background. I believe you should look into maybe adding white or a brighter color font for the text.
The forum layout itself looks as if you cover just about everything to do with "Hogwarts". However when you keep scrolling down it does seem like a lot of sections to look for which isn't necessarily a bad thing, But it can cause people to not post in the right section thus causing
spam. If you can I would look into adding more child forums. Making the
forum index much smaller in size and more easier to navigate.
(Scored 6/20)
Statistics and Activity - (Out of 20)
Viewing your 24 hour roll back, It shows that you get a steady income of members each day, Which is truly great for any forum. However the lack of newcomers as I can see is your problem. This really isn't a bad issues however if you want your forum to be successful and a bit active I
strongly suggest doing some packages from us and many other forums like FP. This will bring you up "content" wise and hopefully will bring in some members.
You have a good amount of posts in total. And it seems as it keeps growing by the day however looking more in depth of the forums I noticed that not many
"members" are posting. Which really doesn't look good in a guest's situation as no one wants to join a forum where only staff like people are posting more than members that really isn't a
community. Maybe you could leave some threads to be open and not let staff post in unless they
really need to this will show people like me
guests that people do in fact post and would bring in much more activity towards your website.
I also began to notice that you are not offering an
off-topic section which isn't needed however it is always nice to allow your members to relax and get out of the
Hogwarts era. Most sites offer these kind of sections and they could even bring in non Hogwarts fans which can be in your favor as well.
(Scored 6/20)
Staff Moderation - (Out of 20)
Now judging your staff wasn't the easiest thing to do. Only because you seem to not setup staff like some and most boards on the internet. So I would really look into making it less
color coded making it easier for even people like me not knowing much about Harry Potter be able to find the "contact" or "go-to" people. Thus making it for regular members who really need to contact a staff more on a 1-on-1 basis really difficult.
I would look into arranging your staff around a bit or make a group called "Admins". I also noticed that you do and keep all posts in the right sections and dispite the huge amount of sections you have going on your forums. But overall nice job and keep up the good work!
(Scored 15/20)
Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism - (Out of 20)
Just browsing throughout your site I couldn't really find any spelling errors besides some missing periods here and there. The grammar could of been a bit better in terms of wording things so anyone can understand it without having to re-read everything three times like I had to for some of the sections.
I would just re-read some of your sections and just touch up a bit of the wording to make it more understandable. Other than that very nice job!
🙂
(Scored 7/20)
Total Score - 38 (Out of 100)
Final Remarks: your site just needs a bit less clutter and overall less forums and a bit changes here and there but overall I could see you getting a better score next time if you follow some of my suggestions 🙂.
What was most liked about the website/forums:
Despite me saying I think you need to add staff I really do enjoy how much uniqueness you put into the way your forum runs.
What was disliked most about the website/forums:
The clutter.
How could I get you (The Reviewer) to join my website?
By removing some of the
portal clutter.
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