Small Forum Review
First Impressions
Where do I begin? *Rubs hands together* Well I suppose I should start on the blinding red color I see when I first enter the site, I mean it's just OUT THERE, ready to blind some poor person who has sensitive eyes, it contrasts with the white and honestly...doesn't make a good impression on guests. Perhaps if you could darken both the white and red, it would be less harsh on the eyes. The other thing that I MUST bring up, is the rotating banner. Is it really all that necessary? I mean sure, it might be cool and all, but having more than three banners rotating? That gets a bit annoying, instead of focusing your effort here, perhaps focus your effort on advertising and other things. As for the number of sections...I must ask.....WHY? Your forum is still very small and requires only....one category and five sections at most....*Rubs head* Well to sum this up, it was a very....different first impression, it's not a site I can support as it is now, however despite the color scheme, it isn't the worst site I've seen, in fact, it's better than most sites begin my own included. So all in all, good start and keep trying. After all, at the end of the day, you'll feel better about yourself.
Appearance
Oh boy, the layout...well, better get it underway. As mentioned above, the color scheme is.....horrendous, I don't want to sound mean, but it's....just...so eye burning. I mean, there's a fine line you draw between colorful and eye gouging, and this...is nowhere near that line, it's just eye gouging. Above all, it's really distracting, ALL THIS STUFF, ALL THE COLORS, it distracts the guests from what really matters...the content. A forum just starting out should be bland, but not too bland, just enough to get the eye of the wandering guest and get your activity started. Don't get discouraged though, no one likes a quitter, keep working until you get your forum on the right track and soon no forum will stand up to you. Re-do the appearance, hold a poll for your members and discuss a possible new layout, instead of just going and doing one. Perhaps hold a GFX contest and have the members do GFX for the site and the winners get added to the site. Customizing a site is endless, it's just limited by your imagination. Good luck to you!
Ratios and Statistics
So your current stats are as follows-
Our users have posted a total of 485 messages
We have 33 registered users
Normally this wouldn't be THAT bad, but your forum opened up in Late September. Which makes me wonder....why? The head admin should ALWAYS respond to all topics, post at least 30 times a day, and FORCE ACTIVITY, until the site becomes active itself. A head admin frankly....CANNOT have a life, it's sad, but true(At least until the site can sustain itself). If you have a life, then creating a site is surely not for you. Make more time for the site, post as many times as possible, reply with creative posts, create at least two new topics a day, show your members that you CARE.
As for the boards, you have too many. It's bluntly put, but a small forum like yours requires only one category at most, and since it's a discussion forum, perhaps five sections, and if you really want to keep them, make a lot of them into subforums under other forums.
such as:
Media can go under Never Ending Debates.
Anime & Manga could be a forum and the forums under it can be its sub forums, catch my drift? The less spaced out it is and the more confined it is, the easier navigating it would be for new members, it also seems more active. Try it out and you'll be surprised ^^. Good luck on this.
Content
Apparently there isn't a single topic on rules....which I find incredibly odd. Please enlighten me, how do you plan to run a forum without rules? Are you planning on adding them later? This really intrigues me, because without rules, your site is a prime target for trolls. So honestly, I REALLY suggest adding rules, it should be the FIRST thing you ever do when you open a site. After further examining, I see that you have rules for the thread in the thread itself, while this works, I do suggest making a topic for all the forum rules and posting it in announcements.
As for grammar and spelling, it's fairly good, as well as the announcement details.
Final Remarks
All in all, this is a site that needs a lot of work, but if you don't give up, it'll get there eventually. It has potential, so follow my tips and come up with a few new ideas, and you'll be on your way.
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