Your Forum Review
First Impressions & Appearance
First off, I must say that I like your theme. I usually am not a fan of vBulletin themes, but your forum's theme is alright. It's a very appealing theme. The color scheme consists of a great combination of the color white and a few different types of the color blue. Great work on the theme, but I feel there are still a few changes you can make to improve your forum's theme.
Your forum's logo is nice. It looks very professional. I love the chat bubble icon you put right above the "e' in "Cafe." I don't really understand your banner's color scheme. The banner looks like it might have matched a forum theme your forum used to have, but it doesn't really match your default forum theme. Your logo is one of the first things noticed on a forum, so it should match your forum's default theme. The orange really doesn't match because there is only a little bit of orange in your forum's theme. I feel the logo is nice, but that's the only thing you need to fix. Regarding the logo, I feel it would be much better to have the orange stuff blue instead, considering your forum theme has so much blue in it. Also, the top menu is difficult to read until you click on it or hover your mouse over it. If you don't do that, it's hard to read because the text and menu background is blue. Blue on blue isn't very appealing. I think it would be best to make the color of the text a bit lighter blue, so it would be balanced out and appealing. Overall, you have selected a great theme for your forum; it fits your forum's genre.
(Score: 17/20)
Site Layout
Your forum has a total of seven categories and eighteen boards. Considering the current activity of your forum, I really feel you should lower the quantity of boards and categories. I think you should narrow down the amount of categories from seven to four. You could move certain boards to other categories. You could even just completely remove a couple categories. For example, the "Help Center" category has two boards with eleven threads. Just by that, you can tell that the category is a hard category to make threads in and get discussion going. So, it's near impossible to keep that category active. Like I have said many, many times, if you can't keep a category or board active, you probably don't need it on your forum. Also, the "Marketplace" category has twenty-four threads, it's not getting very much discussion either. I see no reason to have a whole marketplace category unless your forum is a webmaster forum, etc. Seeing as your forum is a general chat forum, it would make sense to narrow the boards as sub-boards in other boards, and just get rid of the marketplace category. Your layout confuses me greatly. Unless your forum is a Technology forum, I feel you should narrow all the technology discussion into one board and get rid of the technology category. I feel the same way about the Web Design & Development category. I also do not understand why I can see the Area 51 board on the main page. I can't access it, but I can still see it. It just takes up space, I feel you should have it hidden. It really doesn't help develop interest of being a premium member, considering that there is only one thread and three posts in it. It just shows me that I am not missing out on anything by not being a premium member. As you can hopefully see, you have a lot of improvements you can make to your forum's layout.
(Scored 16/20)
Statistics and Activity
As of right now, your forum has accumulated 2,256 posts, 542 threads, and 96 members. According to you, your forum is around six months old. I congratulate you on being devoted enough to keep the forum going that long. Considering the amount of posts and members, the forum averages 2-3 posts from each member. You could do a lot better on that average. It's always good to get people to join your forum, but if they barely post, what's the point to it? You need to do whatever you can to keep members active. You could start a posting competition and hand out a cash prize to get some members to be more active. So, how do you get the inactive members back on the forum? Send out a simple little email reminder. That should really do the trick, hopefully you will have the forum improved greatly, so they'll want to become active members. According to my calculations, each thread is getting three or four replies on average. You know what that tells me? You need to get people to reply. There are topics, you really need some replies to those topics. Participate in post exchanges or order a post package here. 2,256 is an alright amount of posts, but I expect more from a forum that has been open for nearly six months. Keep trying, and everything will fall into its place eventually.
(Scored 13/20)
Staff Moderation
The staff team appears to be doing a nice job moderating the forum. From what I can tell, it looks like you have two staff members. It looks like these two staff members are administrators. This means that there are no global moderators or moderators. If that's the case, why have those staff positions? Two administrators may be a bit unnecessary. I feel you are better off with one administrator and then one global moderator or moderator. Moderating may be going well, but I feel adding one or two moderators would really help the forum. Your staff team seems to be doing a great job moderating though, great job on that.
(Scored 18/20)
Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism
You seem to have done a pretty good job with spelling, grammar, and professionalism. I see a few mistakes, but I suppose that's part of the feel of it being a laid back community. I really like your forum's board descriptions. Each board description is explanatory and of good length. I like how they are unique and creative. They aren't bland and repetitive. I am a bit confused by the "->" in the Search Engines board. It looks weird and out of place, is that on purpose? Also, in the MP3 Players & Other Devices board, in the first sentence "Whatcha" isn't a word. In the second sentence, "new" and "various" need to be switched around. "New various devices," doesn't make sense, "Various new devices" does make sense. Overall, your forum is pretty professional and the two administrators may be laid back but for the most part, they are still posting high-quality posts with good grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Overall, pretty good job on spelling, grammar, and professional, you really need to read through your board descriptions, sub-board descriptions, and important topics.
(Scored 18/20)
Total Score - 82/100
Final Remarks
The Discussion Cafe looks like a great forum, but it could be a lot better. The staff members need to get together and brainstorm a new layout for your forum, ideas to improve your forum, and ways to improve activity.
Strong Points
I really like your forum's theme and most of your forum's board descriptions.
Things to Improve
You really need to improve your forum's layout and your forum's activity.
After reading your review, please click here to rate our service.
The Team Leader will deduct the cash from your account shortly.
