Medium Forum Review
First Impressions
The first thing I am forced to do when I visit the site is zoom out. Everything is very big and in your face. I believe the main reason for this is the lack of edges and borders as your whole content area has a very strong white background. The very first thing I notice once the zoom issues are sorted is the actual board index due to the small header area you have. In many ways this is very good as it takes me straight to the point of the forum. An issue I do see with it is that I can’t quite be sure of the forums niche.
There isn’t much happening on the forum and I just get a really empty feel which I don’t like. There is nothing about the forum that gives me a welcoming feeling or any feeling of inspiration. At a writers forum I would look for something that is going to inspire me, form new ideas within my head and get me really engaged. There is none of this on this forum. Try making the forum a place where writers are going to actually want to spend time. A writer spends an awful amount of time actually writing, there needs to be something extra special that makes them want to view and spend some of that precious time on your forum.
Appearance
Appearance wise I have already mentioned the very white background. This is something that you really need to look into, perhaps a border on the actual board index would be enough, but I do feel that you need to introduce more colour into the design. A proper background wouldn’t hurt the forum in any way. Maybe something that uses the blues in the header or even the oranges of the menu icons. Try to do something that hasn’t been seen on 101 forums before.
The whole design feels a bit mis-matched in many ways. The search bar looks very odd, one for floating in the middle of a blank area, but also because the button isn’t the same height as the search bar which makes it look a bit like a lightsaber. Mixing in the Orange text colour on the menu to an otherwise quite subtle design doesn’t really work for me; in this case it needs to be tied in in more places. The logo is in itself very good and representative of your forum but it is far too small and is easily overlooked.
The board icons are very suitable for the board but the inner boards don’t have the same markers which looks a bit odd. It would be better to use the same icons on the whole forum. The thread layout and view also feels very empty and hard to read due to the large amount of white. There are no borders being used anywhere on this forum which is something that is really needed. Overall you have a great skeleton of a design that takes advantage of MyBB’s best features, it just needs a bit more styling and thought.
Ratios
Your forum has been open for just under a month, in that time it has gained 315 posts which gives you an average of 12 posts per day (Calculated from being open 22 days due to February having 29 days). 12 posts per day on a new forum is fine, you have nothing to worry about. However, I would like to see an increase in this, for next month I would expect an average of 22 posts per day. Your members have an average of 14 posts each which is fine for a new forum, everything over 10 is good.
It is good to see that most of your forums posts are in the on-topic area with only 10% being in the General Discussion area. This shows me that you have members who are actually interested in your forum niche and want to discuss. This is very good and something I hope continues to work and go your way. If it dips then don’t be dis-heartened, create new topics to keep the discussion going, do this and you will be fine. You have 2 members of staff, understandable, but I feel that only one is needed at this stage.
Posts
From writers I expect quite a high quality of posts, with proper grammar and spelling. This is exactly what I get to see too which delights me. The posts on your forum are of a great quality but I do feel some of them are a bit short. I would like to see a bit more discussion than people just agreeing or adding something small. It is actually you as a staff that are making the shortest post. You are the one that sets the trend on a forum, you ought to work on your posting skills and methods to help keep your forum on track.
Content
There are no terms of service, privacy policies or anything of the sort available anywhere on the forum which is really poor. I was even unable to locate any type of welcome information or rules/guidelines. This is something you HAVE to work on. Terms of Service and such are really important on forums, how can you otherwise moderate? Also with this being a writers forum where pieces of work are shared you have to have guidelines covering copyright and the use of other peoples work and ideas. If you don’t have these you could end up with some serious issues that can have a very negative effect on your forum.
Final Remarks
Overall a nice little forum with a strong base. The theme needs a lot of work but apart from that there isn’t much more to do that carry on the way you are. You have GOT to get those documents in order and in place as soon as you possibly can as they are vital for your forum. Good Luck!
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