Your Forum Review
First Impressions & Appearance
When a potential user visits your forum, you want them to have excellent first impressions. I honestly didn't have very good first impressions, but that just means I have more suggestions that can improve your forum. Firstly, I'm not a big fan of your forum's logo. The logo actually isn't too bad, it just seems to be too big, even though it's still not as long as the menu. Secondly, it's good that your forum has a favicon, but I am having trouble deciphering what the favicon even is. I guess it's a fancy "U?" It doesn't really matter, at least you have a favicon. Thirdly, I feel your forum needs staff rank images. A cool looking rank image that has "Administrator" on it looks so much better than just text that says "Administrator," in my opinion anyways.
Fourthly, your forum's board icons fits your forum's genre, but this is the 21st century; they really need to have transparent backgrounds. Since they're GIF images though, you may need to just color the white on the board icons to the color of the boards (gray), as GIF images always seem to mess up when you try to have them transparent. Fifthly, I think you should get rid of the background image. I realize it adds to the spooky feel of the forum to reflect the genre, but it makes the forum look really messy. Also, it's difficult to read text that display over the background without being in a table or anything, such as the copyright. Sixthly, I don't think the social network icons are necessary. You want to promote your forum on social networks and get members to follow, like, etc, but it's not your #1 goal. I think you should find a better spot for it, by making space on the menu or something. I know you can't fit the icons on the menu, but you could fit it in text form, or have the icons in about a 16x16 pixel size. Sixthly, your menu really appears out of whack in alignment. You need to subtract its width a bit. Overall, there are certainly potential improvements. Good luck making them.
(Score: 7/20)
Site Layout
Your forum's board layout consists of fourteen boards in four categories. I think your board layout is basic and effective. This is probably one of the things I like most about your forum. There's really nothing wrong with it. It's a pretty good amount of boards for your board's activity, but I feel you could possibly make a couple changes. I think the "Member Lounge" category is unnecessary. I think it could be merged with the "Off-Topic Discussion" category. I don't even feel the boards in the "Member Lounge" categories need to be boards, they could just be sub-boards of the "Anything Goes Here" board. You also could consider moving the "Other Types of Paranormal" board to the "Main Lobby" category as the last board in it. If you don't want to do these things, you should at least have the "Main Lobby" category before the "Member Lounge" category, as in order of importance. Good luck making these small improvements!
(Scored 17/20)
Statistics and Activity
As of right now, your forum has accumulated 614 posts in 118 topics by 28 members. Your forum opened back in September, so your forum has been open for around for about three months now (possibly a couple weeks less, but you didn't provide me with an exact date). 614 posts isn't too bad to have reached in three months. It's an average of about seven (or so) posts a day. I feel the staff members should be making double that amount of posts a day by themselves. That should really be improved, but your forum is young, so it's expected honestly. Members average about 22 posts each. That's okay I suppose. Yet, 14 of the 28 members have zero posts. That's disappointing, as half of the members have zero posts. For those 14 members who have posted, it's an average of 44 posts per member with at least one post. That's definitely nice. It's good to see the active members are contributing. Now, you need to work towards getting those members with zero posts active. Competitions, contests, etc can really bring in new active members. Don't be afraid to try it out. Also, don't be ashamed of sending out email reminders to inactive members. It's normal. Overall, your forum's statistics and activity aren't great, but the few active members are contributing, and that's very crucial considering your forum's current state.
(Scored 16/20)
Staff Moderation
According to your forum's members page, your forum has a total of four staff members. Three of the staff members are administrators. The other staff member is a global moderator. I don't really feel your forum's staff team needs to have a total of four members at this time. Your forum could definitely get by with just one staff member, the main administrator, right now. It's understandable that some administrators don't want to work by themselves though, so another staff member is certainly. Four staff members isn't really acceptable though. I especially don't think you need three administrators, or at least three administrator accounts (one is labeled as "TechSupport," which you may not count as a staff member). I feel one of the administrators should just be a global moderator, and the current global moderator should either be removed from the staff team completely or demoted to just moderator. Whatever you choose to do, I feel your forum has too many high positions filled right now. It's just not necessary. Overall, staff moderation is going well, but there's little to moderate anyways. I really think you should limit your staff team a bit. I wish you the best of luck doing that.
(Scored 12/20)
Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism
Your forum really doesn't seem to be professional. The appearance is what really gets the lack of professionalism started (mentioned in the "First Impressions & Appearance" review section), and I sadly see that it is followed through when you get to the content. I actually didn't even come across too many spelling and grammar mistakes, but the board descriptions are so small and repetitive. You seem to have started with "Talk" on nearly every single board description and just about every single one is only made up of a sentence. That's kind of silly. Board descriptions shouldn't be boring and repetitive. People actually read them. You want board descriptions to have a bit of depth (couple sentences) in them and you want them to be interesting to. You just need to add in some "spunk;" I guess you could say that. How do you do this? Just be creative and unique for every board description. For example, you could start a board description with a quote, a short interesting story, a question, or you could just switch up words a bit. So, instead of saying "talk" every single time" switch it up between "talk," "discuss," "chat," etc. In the "Member Social Networks" board description, you need to have capital letters on "Facebook," "Twitter," and "Google +." In the "VIP Members Only" board description, "doanted" needs to be "donated." Lastly, in the "Other Types of Paranormal" board description, "UFO's" should just be "UFOs." Overall, your forum needs to simply be more professional. Good luck!
(Scored 9/20)
Total Score - 61/100
Final Remarks
Unclear Paranormal Forums seems to be a small community of a few active members. There are definitely some faults as you can see by the low score, but the current members seem to like it and that's what is most important right now. Just make some of these changes and you'll have a better chance to attract new members.
Strong Points
Your forum's board layout and activity.
Things to Improve
Your forum's appearance and professionalism.
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