Nerds R Us ... ?
Quick Review by Red Herring
Analysis:
Well, I'm going to start off by saying that this has to be one of the most...confused forums that I've ever seen within the past few years. I will explain why I feel that way during my actual review. Furthermore, I will say this is very likely going to end up being one of the shorter reviews I've written for Forum Promotion, as I'm honestly falling a bit short in what I have to say about it. I am not saying that the forum is so spectacular that there's nothing I can critique. I am, without any offense intended, actually saying the exact opposite. Well, sort of. I am not saying that it's particularly bad. I am saying more that it's incredibly
puzzling, in a negative way. In all of my years of article-writing and reviewing, this is the first website that has managed to genuinely stump me.
Again, before you get the wrong impression, it's not that I'm saying the forum itself is bad or terrible. It's just so gosh darned perplexing that I am confused as to why it's currently open.
Well, enough of my rambling. Time to get to down to business. It will definitely be the most challenging review I've written yet. But onwards I press!
Strengths:
- Decent Design
Let's begin with the one truly positive note I could find, shall we? That positive note would definitely have to be the design you have chosen for your forum, "Simplicity." Third party design it may be, it is definitely not a bad choice. It's not spectacular or particularly impressive, but it is most certainly decent and pleasing to the eye.
I'll start off by noting that this theme has curves in all the right places. They're pretty subtle curves, when it all comes down to it, but they are beautiful curves; from the container, to the header, to the forum category headers, to the footer and statistics. Everything is rife with subtle but effective curves. I'd go so far as to say it's a perfect mix of being both blocky and curvy.
The header design is a bit simple, but I suppose that's a given for a theme named "Simplicity." Nonetheless, it is indeed simple, but to delightful effect. The navigation elements are bold, noticeable and complete with a lovely jQuery color fade effect. The general header design itself is a pleasant shade of grey with a lovely bit of CSS accentuation. Sadly, this header is also completely ruined by the fact that it's still using the theme's default logo rather than a website logo.
Moving on to the index design. Once again, it's simple, but effective. I am beginning to realize that this theme's motif of "Simplicity" was perfectly executed. The top of the index begins with a very pronounced breadcrumbs bar as well as bar for login and User Control Panel functions, both of which are quite dazzling. Forum design elements are, once again, simple but effective. Forum category headers feel slightly detached, to positive effect. The forums themselves make use of minimal HTML table dividers, a design aspect I always appreciate. However, I do have one complaint in that the "Last Post" CSS boxes feel a bit messy and unattractive. But it's relatively minor and does not degrade theme quality in any critical fashion.
The only other complaint I have is that the color choices are a bit fruity in this design. They're not bad, but they are a bit strange. The primary colors are a shade of cherry red, green, dark blue, white and dark gray. "Fruit" is literally the first thing that comes to mind when I look at this design. Still, once again, it's minor nitpicking at best and does not detract much of my opinion in that it's a solid design.
Weaknesses:
- Strange & Confusing Index Structure
First off, you may notice that there is only one strength and three weaknesses. I honestly could not find another "strength" that I felt was worthy of mention. However, I also could not find much in the way of "weakness." Truth be told, all three of these weaknesses stem from the same issue, they merely tackle different points, all of which I feel are important to bring up. So let's begin. Starting with...
Your index structure. If I could summarize your entire board index into two words, those two words would be "Organized Chaos." You see, the forum index itself is not particularly difficult to navigate. In fact, it's actually quite organized, hence the first word in my summarization. Organized it may be, however, understandable it is not. There will be more reasoning as to why this is in the next two sections, but for this section, there are certainly some things to say in terms of structure.
For instance, I've noticed that you have a "Modding" category. Well, that's all well and good, but modding for what exactly? You've branched out into so many different topics that it's difficult to comprehend what this "Modding" is geared towards. Game mods? Website mods (plugins/code/themes/etc)? Console mods? This category does not specify. And if it's for *any* kind of technology mod, then it's going to get very disorganized very quickly.
Next up, what on earth is going on with the "Rules" forum? The only contents it contains is a "Rules Thread" with no rules, informing you to instead look at the global announcement "Official Rules and Posting Guidelines." A thread that tells you to look at another thread? I feel that this is really quite pointless. Your users are going to notice a global announcement at some point. If you really want to have an official "link" to the rules, better to include it in the header navigation or perhaps a URL BBCode in a forum's description (such as Announcements) linking to the rules.
Lastly, the "Hosts" category honestly feels like the worst offender to structure, in this regard. It bears both the pointlessness of the rules forum and the lack of direction of the "Modding" category. The reason being is that individuals that own their own hosting website are honestly a bit rare. It's one of our least active directories here at Forum Promotion, and considering that your website is not primarily catered to promotion, having an entire category dedicated to Hosts seems a bit redundant.
Moving on to the next two sections, both of which will tie into this one somewhat.
- Overspecialization & Lack of Specialization
One of the major reasons I find "Nerds R Us" to be an incredibly puzzling and perplexing website is partly because it happens to overspecialize; branching out to far too many subjects that it can handle, and it also manages lacks specialization; no matter which branch it is, they're rather short and unfulfilled. What I mean is, you cover several topics, but none of them are covered enough to make participation worthwhile.
Let's start with your webmaster-oriented forums. You have three categories dedicated to webmaster discussion and servicing, those categories being "Member to Member", "Hosts" and "Webmaster." What I find most ironic about this is the fact that you have more categories and forums dedicated to the discussion and service of webmaster related topics than you do technology and gaming, which seem as though should be your primary niche with a forum name like "Nerds R Us." Secondly, you do have a member exchange area as well as a small advertisement directory. But you have nowhere to actually *discuss* webmaster topics, aside from limited discussion in the "Hosts" category. Furthermore, the member exchange category is practically all but a copy and paste of Forum Promotion's. Which, there's nothing particularly wrong with, but it would be much more interesting if it were more unique to your forum.
Beyond that, I must certainly express my disappointment in the lack of dedicated discussion categories and forums for topics related to technology and gaming. As I mentioned above, with a name like "Nerds R Us", that really should be your primary niche. Yet it almost seems as if it's trying to move away from that aspect entirely in favor of more webmaster and promotion oriented discussion and services.
If I am to be frank here, I would say that you need to drop one of these genres entirely and stick with the other. If you want to become a webmaster and promotion forum, that's fine, but make the full transition. There are no services, no (proper) directories and no discussion forums. What you have now is very poorly optimized and very limited. Similarly, if you want a technology and gaming forum, then you'd be much better off dropping the webmaster gimmick and branch out your categories to focus more on those subjects. You can have one or the other. But you cannot have both without either severely crippling yourself or spreading yourself far too thin. That is, unless you had a large community backing such an expansion. Unfortunately, you do not.
- Identity Crisis
This is it. This is the primary issue of your forum. This is the issue that the two former sections were building up towards. Your URL tells me this is "The Electric Nation Gaming Community." Your php code tells me this is "Nerds R Us." The theme tells me that this is "Simplicity", and sadly I must call it a liar.
Just...
What are you trying to be, here?
This really has to be one of the most confused forums I've ever seen. It wants to be a gaming community. No, actually, it wants to be a technology and gaming community. Actually, wait. It wants to be a webmaster forum. No, no, no! Actually, it's a pseudo promotion forum with some technology and gaming elements!
Not only does Nerds R Us not have an identity, it's suffering from a crisis of identity. It doesn't seem to know what it wants to be and has no dedicated niche to speak of. Much like I said before, it's pure organized chaos. And this is definitely not for the better.
You desperately need to find a genre you want to use and stick with it. All of these weird gimmick categories are not going to do you any favors in the long run. I can honestly say that with it's current identity crisis, it stands very little chance, if any at all, of actually finding any success.
Final Remarks:
This was one of the most puzzling websites I've ever reviewed, Forum Promotion or otherwise. And I have to say, the confusion of Nerds R Us seems to be rather contagious. I had tremendous difficulty writing this review and trying to put my thoughts into words. Even here at the end, I don't believe I did a very good job of it, but hopefully my points still get across.
Nerds R Us
needs an identity. I don't believe I can be any more clear than that. It's tried to over-extend itself far too much, and it shows. And again, it's not that there is anything particularly bad about the concept of the forum or most of its other aspects, it's simply that the execution is abysmal. I mean no offense or disrespect, but I feel being this blunt is the best way to emphasize the point.
Still, I wish you warm regards, Nerds R Us. Whatever path you walk, whatever roads you travel, I wish you the best of luck and hope you find success.
After reading your review, please click here to rate your review
