Loopy’s Workshop Review
General
First Impressions – A brief look at your site, reveals that it looks ok, if I was a new person to the site for the first time, I wound be really inclined to have a look around a little more to see what the site is. The theme all though it has some basic colours seems to shine a little making a nice background effect, while when I look at the forums they look nice and active. I have to say if I planned on joining the site, my first impressions are looking very good.
Scored – 8/10
Target Subject – As an advertising forum your site does just that, I see plenty of ways to promote my own forums and blogs here, with a nice variety between forum services and member exchanges. For a promotion forum you are right on the money when it comes to an advertising forum.
Scored – 10/10
Appearance
Theme – The shiny blue on a nice white background makes for a good appeal, the theme looks nice, is easy to see through and read the text, and it doesn’t distract from the rest of the forum. It blends in with the background while at the same time is a nice theme to complement your style of forum. The stripy green lines also add a nice effect to the topics as you scroll down the board, while the white topic banners and the simple coloured text makes everything easy to read. All in all you have done a great job, not to simple not to complicated, and a nice real professional work of art.
Scored – 9/10
Graphics – Your buttons are nice and simple with the common EZ buttons on the front page making the site scream this is EZ. The banner up the top is a little basic but that could work either way, being as a simple approach is the best, or it’s just too simple. All though the nice little bit of sparkle that runs through the banner is a nice touch, it grabbed my attention to notice the banner. Also all your EZ buttons are just that, EZ moved onto a different background or a different colour, it would have been nice to see a different variety of buttons on the site. While most of the new topic replay icons look half decent, I would like to see a little more work goes into some of these buttons.
Scored – 6/10
Layout – The forum layout is easy to navigate with everything being spelt out as plain as day, doesn’t take me long to find what I’m looking for on your forum. You have also organized the board real well, seems everything is in its right section, all thought this setup is common on most promotion forums, the formula works, and works well so I’m not going to sit here and give you a hard time on the matter. And all the tools I need like the user control panel and messages are located up the top and easy to see, you really done a nice job and looks like you put plenty of thought into where you want everything on your forum to be placed.
Scored – 7/10
Content
Spelling and Grammar – Cant find to much wrong in this department, no spelling mistakes by the looks of things in either most of the staff posts or the topic descriptions. But I did spot several grammar mistakes for example the media area section is lacking a full stop, I would suggest you give your site a proof read to see if you can fix up a few more of these mistakes.
Scored – 7/10
Style – Your guides and rules have some style to them, they say a little more then the bare minimum about what they do. But I recommend reading your own guides and rules, even though they are just guides to how different sections of the forum work, spicing them up a little never hurt anyone, and would incline more people to read them. Also while I commend your effort for trying to add some life into the topic descriptions they don’t look alive to me, try rewriting the topic descriptions to say more then what they just do. For example for the media section you could add a little joke about bringing popcorn to watch the interesting debates or movies.
Scored – 3/10
Posts – Checking the quality of posts on your forum they seem decent enough, most of the staff do know how to type well with proper grammar and spelling. Some of the staff’s posts around the board are no more then a 1 or 2 word posts saying thanks, I know some of you lack imagination but when I see a replay to something I posted by a staff member, normally more then thanks (put member’s name here) is always welcome.
Scored – 7/10
Staff
Professionalism – Your staff know how to act professionally and run the board, looking around the site it all runs smoothly and like clock work. The posts and guides your staff whip up all work well, and your staff members know how to interact with members on the board. Your forum also appears to have a good number of staff for the site. You haven’t overloaded your site with staff, and that’s always a good thing, as you know the old saying too many cooks spoils the meal.
Scored – 9/10
Behavior – Your staff members know how to keep there cool, which is always a must on any forum. I don’t see anything around the board that suggests your staff treat members poorly or unfairly. Your staff seem to have the up most respect for the members of your forums, and in my books that’s a huge plus, I got no more to say on this topic as your staff have nothing wrong with there behavior.
Scored – 10/10
Statistics
Forum Stats – Your forum is doing a fantastic job for only being open 5 months, I mean over 7000 posts and 200 members after just 5 months that’s 1 big achievement. Make sure you give yourself a big pat on the back as you have done a fine job, I only want to know 1 thing, what’s your secrets as I want o know.
Scored – 10/10
Activity – Your forums activity is also pretty good, I did notice some areas lacking any attention at all over the last week or more, and a few sections with no action for only a few days. But all in all you have done a good job, I could only suggest you get some of your staff to stir up some activity in the areas needing some attention.
Scored – 8/10
Final Score – 94/120
Final Remarks – All said and done your forum is great, I would really have to take a good look to spot any problems that your forum might have, and all of them are at best minor and can be taken care of real easily. Just keep up the effort your putting in and your forum will take off like a rocket.
Most liked about the forum – The really nice job your staff do on the forum, both professionally and treating members with the respect.
Most disliked about the forum – Your lack of style typing up some of your guides and topic descriptions.
What you would need to do to get this reviewer to join your site – You wouldn’t have to yank my leg to join, if I had spare time and wanted to join another promotion forum I would sign up right now.
Edit - Yes I know this review is not edited properly but until I decide on all the areas I want to cover, I will leave it un edited.
