I will have this done within an hour or so.<br /><br />-- 12 Sep 2010, 11:48 --<br /><br />
Your Forum Review
First Impressions & Appearance - (Out of 20)
Your forum is beautiful. It really is. One of the best IPB styles I've seen, everything fits in perfectly and looks perfect. The forum is, at first, very attractive. The one thing I thought to myself is perhaps if you are looking to get people to register, it would be useful to have a message explaining the benefits of registration to guests at the top of the page. It's rare to see a forum with no ads or messages to guests, so it looks a little odd for me like that.
The only thing I didn't love about your design was the logo. It's OK, and does the job but it's not exactly flashy, interesting or memorable. It's a little dull. It doesn't look bad, and it fits in alright but you could do with something perhaps with an actual logo rather than just text and something which users will remember for your site. But your logo isn't bad at all and it's not really bad enough to mark you down much for.
The only other thing I noticed was that in the sidebar the Facebook Social widget ran too wide for the sidebar width so there was a horizontal scroll bar at the bottom which wasn't great, still only a minor thing against a fantastic look.
(Scored 19/20)
Site Layout - (Out of 20)
Too many forums for a new site, I'll tell you right now. When you have too many forums, things tend to look more empty than they really are on a new site which can put people off. Focus on a smaller index.
You could try merging the General Hardware forum with Internal Components, Software Forums into one big Software forum then add Web & Social Media to the category and rename the category Computer Software & Internet. I also suggest changing the gaming forum names as follows: General Gaming Discussion -> General Gaming, Xbox & Xbox 360 -> Xbox, Nintendo Wii -> Nintendo, Sony PlayStation 1, 2 & 3 (you didn't say Microsoft Xbox?) -> PlayStation. Also the gaming forums should have descriptions as otherwise things look a little out of place.
So yeah, I think you should rework your site layout to be a little smaller and have every section looking as active as the next - which should be very active if the sections are broader. The sections as they are aren't THAT bad, they'd better suit a bigger forum - you can always expand your forums back when you're bigger if you do decide to cut down the size a little.
(Scored 11/20)
Statistics and Activity - (Out of 20)
Your forum began 2 months ago and you have received 600 posts. That's on average 10 posts a day, while it's not awful that can definitely be improved on with some post exchanges and a little more promotion outside of FP.
You should focus on advertising a little more while continuing to post very actively on your website (try to reply to every single post made with repliable-replies
😛 ), try sigging/commenting a link to your site on other technology based forums and blogs. Activity is probably the biggest problem with your site at the moment - always get your members to post wildly and encourage the entire community to post.
With all that said, you still are a very new site however it is very possible to do better than you already are.
(Scored 13/20)
Staff Moderation - (Out of 20)
4 administrators and 2 global moderators is way too much for a site of your size. Firstly, why so many administrators? You only really need one to manage your entire site at the moment, I don't see why you require 4. Perhaps they all work for the Zaps Technology website? The good news is that all your administrators are very active on the site - except for one, cooldude. There's not much point in having an admin on your website if they aren't active.
And for the global moderators, you've got two there. With the amount of admins, it's not great. You seem to be hiring your most active members which is OK but if everyone on your site seems to be staff it can be intimidating for new members. I don't suggest sacking any of them as that may slump their activity a little but you should focus on getting the site more active, not getting staff members. The global mods actually look like they're doing a pretty good job though.
Your current staff team, if active, should last you until you get about 10,000 posts-ish. Perhaps even more, so you're alright for a while.
(Scored 13/20)
Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism - (Out of 20)
Generally it doesn't look bad but I read this which didn't look good:
http://forums.zapstech.net/index.php?/t ... ctionality ... a staff member had put something on a member profile which shouldn't be there. Hardly professional. You should check the admins logs to see who that was. And also in public you shouldn't reference to the fact that you didn't know who it was.
From reading that topic, it doesn't give a very good impression of your site. You should work on being more professional around users as staff members. Apart from that, the grammar around the site was generally all OK and I didn't really notice any more problems. It was odd how some forum names ended in "Discussion" and some didn't though, I suggest not having the word.
(Scored 15/20)
Total Score - 71 (Out of 100)
Final Remarks:
What was most liked about the website/forums: The lovely design. It really does look great, good choice!
What was disliked most about the website/forums: The site layout was a little big.
How could I get you (The Reviewer) to join my website? I already did, to look around - I'd be more likely to though if you put a 'register now' message up.
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