Your Quick Review
Pros
+ It's certainly a plus that your forum has a favicon. It's a nice favicon, but I feel it should match your logo and/or theme. It may match images from your forum's other themes, but it should match your current default theme and the logo on it.
+ I like the snow. I feel it may be a little early to add features like that though. I suppose it's fine since it's December though. It's good that there is an easy way to turn the feature off, as some computers, internet connections, and browsers have problems with stuff like it. Also, it's just plain annoying to some people.
+ I like that your forum offers many different themes. Members love a variety when it comes to how they are accessing the forum. It's also cool that you seem to have different themes for each season or month. For example, your forum has a couple themes for November.
+ I like that your forum has in depth rules. It's good that you took the time to type up your forum's rules. So few people actually do that anymore. They just think they can plagiarize. I am glad you aren't one of those administrators who do that. You may be taking the long route not plagiarizing, but it leads to more success in the end.
+ I feel the side tables on the left of the forum are nice. It's good organization. It features important things as well, such as the links displayed in the important links table. I also like that you have a table for the current things going on at the forum (although apparently there isn't much going on), and I really like the featured sites table. That's a pretty nice bonus feature.
Cons
- I feel you need to expand on your forum's user groups. On the user legend, there seems to be only one user group. I know that's not the case, so you really just need to add the user groups to legend. You really need to add the staff groups, but it would be good if you added the joinable user groups as well.
- I know you said the affiliates links at the bottom are just a temporary thing, but I feel I should go ahead and cover this anyways. If you plan on displaying the affiliates on the index page, you obviously should have a table so it will appear a bit better. I feel you should have the affiliate table at the bottom, but still be on the blue background (Skyloft Forest theme).
- I think you forum has too many staff members. There appears to be five staff members, and that's really unnecessary. Your forum definitely doesn't need it, no matter how much you may struggle with activity because of college. Three administrators is definitely not necessary, you should at least fix that issue.
- The menu under the logo doesn't seem to be displayed very well at all. It's not organized very well. It just doesn't look very neat. The roll-over drop down menus are cool, but the "Simple Blogs" menu shouldn't stretch past the rest of the menu buttons horizontally.
- I don't think you need to have a redirect board for the forum rules. You just need to make the rules more noticeable on the menu. I suggest removing it from a roll-over drop down menu. I think it would look best next to "Preferences" on the top menu. It would be seen just as much, but it wouldn't take up space anymore space.
- I don't really feel all the sub-boards in the "Promotion" board are necessary. You could easily do the same thing in one thread. Also, it seems more like an advertisement section because of the board name being promotion. I think you should just get rid of that as there isn't too much point to it or turn it into an advertisement board as well.
- I feel the blue on your forum's current default theme is way too strong. You may want strong exciting colors to represent the time of year and the game Legend of Zelda, but you have to remember that you want your forum to be eye candy as well. Having strong blue like that makes things not as fun to read or look at as it may even hurt your eyes. I feel you should lighten the blue up a bit to more of a sky blue and it would be so much more peaceful. You could also lighten up the green as well. It isn't as bad though.
Final/General Thoughts
Honestly, it was hard for me to understand what the forum is about. I eventually figured it out, but the name "Simple Studios" really doesn't go with the whole 25th anniversary of Legend of Zelda on the logo. I'm assuming the forum is like a general discussion forum, but more inclined to gaming, and because of Legend of Zelda's 25th anniversary, there is a logo and board covering it, or was the forum solely created to celebrate the 25th anniversary?
You should be proud of...
Your forum's favicon and theme variety.
You really need to work on...
Your forum's color scheme on the current default theme and the board layout.
Score - 4/10
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