Your Forum Review
First Impressions & Appearance - (Out of 20)
Your forum hurt my head. Oh my, it is so loaded down with so much stuff, it's difficult to use. Let's use your portal as an example. You've got a big blue "Latest News" bar. Right below it is another blue bar. Directly below it is yet another. Finally, below it is a big blue banner. It's really confusing and an eyesore to look out. Then scroll down to the bottom and you have this MASSIVE affiliate scroller, which is annoying, but it's on top of this odd Facebook-like bar at the bottom. (Which, thank gosh, can be minimized.) Then buttons and banners on both sides, it's mind-blowingly confusing. Let's move onto your actual forum. Everything is so...dark. You still have that gosh-darned affiliate bar down there, every post, no matter what the length of the actual content, ends up being huge. You've also got one of the oddest backgrounds I've seen for a forum - and it doesn't even stretch correctly all the way across. Yikes.
(Scored 5/20)
Site Layout - (Out of 20)
Your forum is much too bloated. It's feature-overloaded. It took me a minute to even find out how to get to your forum from your portal. Somehow, a forums link isn't in that MASSIVE navbar you have at the top. Seriously, it's massive. One thing that could be eliminated off the bat is the "admin login" link. Maybe a few people have use for it, but surely that could be memorized by the admins or kept in a private forum. Having a big admin link that's useless for 99% of the forum is a waste of space. Also, why have a toolbar for people when you have that big bar at the bottom which I'm sure suffices? Also, I checked out your shop, which seems to offer a grand total of one item. Seriously? Is having this entire big feature and cash system worth one item? Having useful features - good. Having features just because you can - bad.
Now, moving onto how the forum is physically layed out, it's not that bad. You added an announcement board, which is good. You don't have an overload of off-topic forums, and the rest of your forums seem very relevant. You do have a lot of forums, but I'm not going to complain about that, it's not that bad.
(Scored 10/20)
Statistics and Activity - (Out of 20)
I see you've been open over 2 years. 121 members is fairly good for that amount of time, but your post count is pretty pitiful. Way back when I did a quick review of your forum, I pointed out you just had 2K posts or so, which unfortunately still rings true today. I feel for you though, my forum died a very bad death, but the truth is, your forum isn't going to survive unless you improve your activity. (Sorry for that run-on sentence there.) I'd also like to point out you have over 1500 posts. That means actual members have posted, maybe, 1K or so posts. That's less than 500 posts per YEAR.
(Scored 7/20)
Staff Moderation - (Out of 20)
I've seen worse, but is four admins really needed for a forum like yours? That's a bit much, especially considering the activity level. I really have no clue what directors are (I assume they're some type of moderator?) or what Premium Members are (one has 0 posts?). So, I pressed the Moderation Team button, and wait, Directors show up as admins. Really now, in total, you have 7 people listed as admins. That's really quite overkill. Also, your staff's professionalism could be better. For example, look at this topic.
http://techforum.ipbfree.com/index.php?showtopic=1124
That's an admin right there. If anything, he should be asking the other staff, and the staff as a whole should be more aware of things, and shouldn't have to ask publicly about stuff. (And they should have more htan one word in a post.) I'm not trying to tear down ADMIRAL MANSON or anything, just an example.
(Scored 9/20)
Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism - (Out of 20)
Yay! Your forum descriptions weren't bad. That's something your forum did quite well. I'll only point out the two things I thought were very noticeable.
"Get support and discussion for all forms of portable audio, including MP3 players, Ipods, and Satellite Radio." should be, "Get support and discussion for all forms of portable audio; including MP3 players, iPods, and satellite radio."
Also,
"Talk About Your Favorite Games - or, not so favorite Games..." should be ,"Talk about your favorite games, or, not so favorite games..."
(Scored 18/20)
Total Score - 49 (Out of 100)
Final Remarks: Your main thing that killed you is the overload of features. It just doesn't work.
What was most liked about the website/forums: Spelling and grammar.
What was disliked most about the website/forums: Everything else.
How could I get you (The Reviewer) to join my website? Take into account mainly the top two sections of the review.
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