SWC The Resurgence
Quick Review by Twisted Fairytale
Analysis:
Strengths:
- Site Banner and Images
I understand that this is a topic that some may say "every good forum should have this, so why should he get commended for it?" Well, every good forum should have it, and you do, so I'm going to point it out! Your custom banner is very well made and placed. It took me a few moments to realize what it said on the bottom, but after I noticed it advertised your 6 Month-aversary, I smiled to myself, literally! The way that you promote site achievements and milestones has a huge impact on your community's morale in ways that some Administrators do not understand. Sharing a milestone with your community only makes them want to continue and hit another, therefore advancing your forum!
I would also like to commend you for the theme of your board. I did a little research and could not find any other themes matching the one you flaunt. Now, granted, my Google searches could have been faulty, but I also do not notice a theme copyright on the bottom of your forum, so I am assuming that the theme is custom! Brilliant! Having a custom theme for your forum not only shows that you are serious about running your own community, but also that the community is different from the rest of the internet... Special.
- The Subject
You have something very special to your forum, that should be used more as a distinguishing trait: the subject. I can't tell you how many forums I have been to about wrestling because there haven't been many! Just as you hammered in how old your forum is, you should do the same for your topic.
Well, how do you do that? I don't know, lets ask a reviewer! Your index. Your content. At this time, you have two forums dedicated to wrestling... It would be better if the majority of your forum focused around the subject of the forum. At the moment, only a small minority of your forum is based on Wrestling, and the rest is general discussion. My suggestion? Increase the size of content about wrestling. Add a few forums or subforums, perhaps even run a few contents... Get people focused on wrestling!
You may say, "wait, that's not a Strength!" But it is! It's a strength that is lying underneath, waiting to be uncovered. Embrace the subject of your site, and make sure the content of your forum reflects it.
Weaknesses:
- New Member Approval
Before I start, if you wish for your community to be a gated-off group of friends who seldom allow anyone else in, please ignore the following paragraph(s), but if you would like your community to one day be larger and more open, please keep reading...
As a reviewer, it is best for us to register at the site we are reviewing just to get a more in-depth view of member lists, hidden topics, etc... So I registered, but I ran into a problem that could seriously hinder your growth as a forum: I was made to wait for admin approval. Now, this may not seem like a bad thing to you at the moment, but consider the stance of a new member... Joe is sitting around, wishing he could join and post on the forum. He fills out all of the registration while having amazing ideas on what he can contribute to the forum. He presses the "Accept" button, ready to post and contribute... and Bam! He must wait for admin approval. This could take minutes, but it is more than likely going to take hours, especially at night. That is a long time for a new member to be approved to the forum. Consequently, the content and activity they were ready to contribute is now, most likely, dissipated.
My suggestion for this is simple: Remove administrator approval and replace it with email activation. If you are worried about spammers, I would advise you not to be for one good reason: your moderators. If I am not mistaken (which I could be since I am not activated by the admin yet), you have a total of four staff members. These staff, I assume, are active on your forum and contribute greatly to its success. Therefore, if any spammers get past your email activation, they can be easily dealt with by your staff. And that scenario is an if statement, because it is not likely to happen.
So in short, consider removing the administrator activation feature for new members. In the long run, it can hinder the growth and contributions your new members make to your forum, therefore reducing the amount of growth and community your forum sees.
- Member Activity
Before you get me wrong, this section is not about the activity of your site as a whole, but about the activity of your members. As I was scrolling through all recent posts and topics, I noticed something strange: the vast majority of them were posted by staff of your forum. I found this intriguing and dove deeper into the threads and found that your staff do ~85% of the posting on your forum.
I understand that this is a repeated subject, but I don't believe you have a member base size relative to the amount of activity you see daily. I also understand that this is a classic reviewer phrase such as "You need to promote more," and "You need more members." But I do not know how else to put it. Your forum is very professional-looking and well put-together. I would go as far as to say, "Your forum is done, go get members."
The subject matter of your forum very specific, which may hinder your growth, but that is not an issue you really need to address. What I would suggest though is getting out there, doing some Search Engine advertising, finding some affiliates on large sites such as Forum Promotion, and putting your name out there even more. With the amount of members you have now compared to the current activity, I can not think about what your activity would be with a decent-sized member base. Insane! (in a good way, of course!).
Final Remarks:
I could not add this in up top, but one feature that I noticed about your forum that is not being used was your Calendar. Normally, calendars are used on forums who have normal activities, or forums that host gaming guilds who have events. I find little use for the calendar for your forum,
unless you somehow enter the dates for important fights for your forum to watch, but I feel like a user would more likely go to ESPN (or a website for fights) to look up times rather than your forum. In my opinion, I would remove this link because it serves little purpose for your overall forum.
Apart from that, your forum has grown a lot, not in members, but in maturity since your last review. If you were to take one more step in improving your forum before shifting to advertisement and basic member-generation, it would be to remove the advertisements from your front page. Honestly, since they have little to no relation to the subject matter of your forum, they get in the way. Removing the ads would show a more professional, attractive forum.
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