Website Name: The Mario Forums
Website Link: http://themarioforums.com/
Which would you like?: Standard
Notes:
Website Link: http://themarioforums.com/
Which would you like?: Standard
Notes:
The Mario Forums
- Thread starter Hissae2
- Start date
Thanks for posting! One of our reviewers will tag this soon. 🙂
I think the layout is a little bit odd. You only have one forum which is related to your niche. A lot of your discussion seems to be general rather than mario-focused. Maybe consider creating more forums, which specifically relate to Mario? That way, you could encourage people to discuss mario-related things more frequently by giving them more places to discuss them.
Good luck! 🙂
I think the layout is a little bit odd. You only have one forum which is related to your niche. A lot of your discussion seems to be general rather than mario-focused. Maybe consider creating more forums, which specifically relate to Mario? That way, you could encourage people to discuss mario-related things more frequently by giving them more places to discuss them.
Good luck! 🙂
D
Deleted member 17779
Your Review is In Progress!
Thank you for requesting feedback. I have tagged your thread, and will finish an official review within at most 48 hours. In the meantime, you will receive informal feedback from other reviewers and members at Forum Promotion. Once your official review is complete, you will be free to ask questions and receive feedback so long as your website remains only, and this topic remains reasonably active. You will also be able to request a re-review 14 days after this review is completed.
Thank you, and good luck!
D
Deleted member 17779
The Mario Forums
Review by Bazinga!
Review by Bazinga!
[note]========== BEGIN - Design Quality ==========[/note]
I noticed that you had multiple "skins" for your forum, even a couple of mobile versions. I like the fact that you offered your members so many different ones except for one thing. I noticed that a couple of the "skins" were using the same icons on them. The background was different and the banner/header was different for each but it looks as if the some of the forum markers were just being re-used. If you are going to have different "skins" for your forum, I would make sure that each one is completely different. I do like the fact that each "skin" is related to the niche' of your forum though. I also glad to see you using "Ice Kingdom" as your default since that one is the best one out of all of them in my opinion.
[note]========== END - Design Quality ==========[/note]
Good
[note]========== BEGIN - Site Statistics ==========[/note]
At the time of this review, you have 1,426 members and 239,298 posts on your forum. Being a forum that is a little over 4 years old, I don't think that is bad statistics. Especially for a forum that has such a specific niche'. I even noticed that you had a thread in the 'News' section showing the stats of your forum. It is nice that you take pride in your forum and post that so that your members can see for themselves. You also have had several tournaments and contests recently, something that I am sure helped to promote and boost activity on your forum. It's also nice that those contests are related to the forum niche' as well.
[note]========== END - Site Statistics ==========[/note]
Good
[note]========== BEGIN - Site Structure ==========[/note]
The structure of your forum isn't bad but there were a couple of things that puzzled me. One thing is why is the section where Mario is predominantly discussed being referred to as 'Community' and the area where the news and feedback are being discussed are referred to as 'Mario Forums'? In my opinion, I would think it would be the other way around. However, I understand that that is just my opinion but I just found that puzzling. Also, I couldn't help but notice that your navigation bar is way over in the top right hand corner on your default "theme" or "skin". That seems kind of out of the way to me. I think it would look better if it were more towards the center but that is just me.
[note]========== END - Site Structure ==========[/note]
Average
Final Remarks
I think you are doing an outstanding job with your forum. You seem to be really dedicated to your forum, especially since it has been open for a little over four years. I think that makes a big impression on people. Don't ever give up on your forum because I think your hard work that you've put in shows.
Your Score
D
Deleted member 17779
Cash has been Deducted!
Thank you for using the Forum Promotion review service. We have deducted 100FP$ from your account in exchange for conducting a Standard Review. You can request another review in 14 days.
To request a re-review, post on the Service Upgrades thread.
Thanks for the review Bazinga! and thanks Cosmic for the feedback. 🙂
As for your comments on the layout: We originally had an entire category for Mario with several forums and subforums, but there was not enough activity in them and they eventually ended up being condensed to one. I couldn't have an entire category for one board and wasn't sure how else to set it up. Do you have any suggestions for a better layout? 🙂
This was a standard review, not an advanced review. Not sure if I was deducted too much or if you just used the wrong template by mistake.
As for your comments on the layout: We originally had an entire category for Mario with several forums and subforums, but there was not enough activity in them and they eventually ended up being condensed to one. I couldn't have an entire category for one board and wasn't sure how else to set it up. Do you have any suggestions for a better layout? 🙂
Bazinga! said:
This was a standard review, not an advanced review. Not sure if I was deducted too much or if you just used the wrong template by mistake.
ImCoolBeans
Up-and-Coming Sensation
Bazinga! said:
This was a standard review, not an advanced review. Not sure if I was deducted too much or if you just used the wrong template by mistake.[/quote]
It also says advanced review so I think it was a template error.
I have always like The Mario forms style and how it is run. The only reason I am not a member is because I know nothing of Mario, so totally nothing to do with you.
I don't know if it is possible or not, but maybe you could change the flower forum icon to something different for the various sectons. Your News, feedback and coconut forums category could be a flower icon, and the community section a Mario icon.
Just a thought though
ImCoolBeans
Up-and-Coming Sensation
Atrox said:
Still says Advanced Review... Sorry for being a perfectionist! 😛
fantanoice
Madly Diligent
I feel like I've mentioned it to you before but I do think the forum is a little too fixated on general discussion and not Mario. Maybe consider expanding the Mario section again, and maybe doing some exchanges / packages to get some threads started there if you're worried about activity.
Excommunicado
Paragon
It looks like a very established active community, 230k posts is great and it's good to see an active Super Mario Forum. All your sections have been posted in recently. The welcome section at the top is pretty discouraging and probably should be removed. I love the logo and the rest of the design looks very good.
Really good community, good luck :great:
Really good community, good luck :great:
I was testing out the theme options and for me the Bleet and Acid Haven are a little hard to read the posts. The rest have good text and background colors.
I agree with what is said above with more Mario topics like maybe include a board about the Mario characters or have boards for games that are talked about a lot on your forum since I see you already did that for Mario Kart.
I agree with what is said above with more Mario topics like maybe include a board about the Mario characters or have boards for games that are talked about a lot on your forum since I see you already did that for Mario Kart.
Looks like a really nice forum!
I don't like much how you are using ZetaBoards, I would suggest that you just use MyBB or XenForo and host it on the domain its self.
Other than that I really like it and don't see much wrong with it.
I wish you good luck to your board TheMarioForums!
I don't like much how you are using ZetaBoards, I would suggest that you just use MyBB or XenForo and host it on the domain its self.
Other than that I really like it and don't see much wrong with it.
I wish you good luck to your board TheMarioForums!
Thanks for the comments, everyone! 🙂
Thanks for the advice. 🙂 I'm not sure we get enough activity for that or if it's something the existing community would be interested in, but it's something to look into either way.
Thanks for your feedback. 🙂 The welcome section is there in place of the default zetaboards welcome box (without the annoying zb ad). There is supposed to be a login box there to allow people to log in from the index, but that's not working for a lot of people right now, so I had to remove it. I'm hoping to be able to add that back again soon.
Thanks for the feedback. 🙂 I agree with you about some of the themes, I was planning to remove some of the not so attractive themes, but there are some people who continue to use them so I can't take them away without complaints. We do have a really nice custom default theme though which is what people will see first.
Thanks for the feedback. I get the "you should move away from zetaboards" comment here from FP users a lot but in reality, zetaboards is very customizable, does everything we need it to do from an admin perspective, and from a users point of view, no one outside of the FP community cares at all about what software we are using. 😛 I could go on but I don't want to turn this into a forum software discussion, so I'll leave it at that.
fantanoice said:
Thanks for the advice. 🙂 I'm not sure we get enough activity for that or if it's something the existing community would be interested in, but it's something to look into either way.
007 said:
Thanks for your feedback. 🙂 The welcome section is there in place of the default zetaboards welcome box (without the annoying zb ad). There is supposed to be a login box there to allow people to log in from the index, but that's not working for a lot of people right now, so I had to remove it. I'm hoping to be able to add that back again soon.
Annadog40 said:
Thanks for the feedback. 🙂 I agree with you about some of the themes, I was planning to remove some of the not so attractive themes, but there are some people who continue to use them so I can't take them away without complaints. We do have a really nice custom default theme though which is what people will see first.
Mr Kewl said:
Thanks for the feedback. I get the "you should move away from zetaboards" comment here from FP users a lot but in reality, zetaboards is very customizable, does everything we need it to do from an admin perspective, and from a users point of view, no one outside of the FP community cares at all about what software we are using. 😛 I could go on but I don't want to turn this into a forum software discussion, so I'll leave it at that.
fantanoice
Madly Diligent
Hissae2 said:
I'd reckon adding the areas would encourage a some vertical growth in your niche. Like, I understand that a lot of people say not to have many sections when starting out - which is good in that situation - but MF is hardly inactive or new at this stage. To me just having the one area gives the impression that you don't give a stuff about the site's actual topic, which is silly because that's what people going are expecting (excluding seasoned members who mainly stick to the general chat area).
What don't you like about the color theme? I've received pretty much entirely positive feedback on our default (Ice Kingdom - it's our custom theme) theme. And the header is a normal size, about the same as on FP.
D
Deleted member 25872
Nice looking forum. I think you should have a few more sub-forums and maybe different color background. Apart from that nice forum bro! 🙂
Affiliates
