Completed Review for GeneralTalk.net

Forum Name: General Talk
Link: GeneralTalk.net
Type of Review: Medium
Extra Notes: None
Your name on Forum: Teekay

Thanks

Hi Teekay,

Sorry for the long time with no reply. I've had a mega busy week.

I'm going to tag this, but it won't be completed until saturday.

Thanks for your paticence.

Okay, no problem. Thanks for letting me know.

If you haven't started the review then could you do it just a bit latet because I'm making some major changes to the forum and it would be better if you could do the review after the update.

Thanks.

The changes have been made. You can start the review when you get time.

IN PROGRESS! - Your review is now being written and will be posted within 12 hours.

Any news on this?

BUMP.

oh okay. It's fine then, I thought it was being ignored or something.

Thanks for letting me know.

I will be completing this review for you

It should be up soon

GeneralTalk

Reviewed 4/5/12 by a reviewer at Adminforums.org

First Impressions:

Your forum theme was the first thing that stood out to me when I opened the link. It is one of the simplest, but elegant themes I've seen for IPB in a while. The colors all flow together and the grey scheme really suits the forum. The whole layout of the forum is the second thing that caught my eye as well. Everything is very well organized and accessible. There is not too much on the index, nor is there too little. The placement of your login is unique as well, it took me a second to find it but it is very nicely placed. The simplicity of the logo is perfect for the forum as it matches the whole style and isn't too overdone. The one thing that threw me off a little is there is really no enticing message for new possible members to join. I'll touch on those topics later in the review.

(20/25)

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Look and Feel:

As I said in the introduction to this review, your style seems perfect. The colors all go together and this is one of the better themes I've seen for IP. Board. This theme also has features that I have not come across before. First is you have the ability to change the whole forum listing to a grid-like style and see just the forum description and image. That is something that is uncommon amongst themes. The second is the background changing option, which is somewhat unique in the sense of you only change the forums background and not the overall style. This is appealing as they are all very subtle colors on the backgrounds, and all match the overall theme colors very nicely. The one flaw I found is there is a fairly large whitespace gap at the end of the forum listing which I'm sure can easily be resolved. However this look off as nothing is really there to fill it.

(22/25)

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Organization:

As I mentioned in the beginning, the organization looks great. The index is not too long to scroll down which is a positive. They also have roughly the same amount of sub forums per category which is nice. It keeps the board balanced and helps the flow of everything. You have quite a selection of categories which are properly named and nothing appears out of place. Another positive is you have kept the descriptions short and too the point. No long paragraphs explaining what should be here or things like that, it makes the forum look nicer to guests browsing the forum.

(22/25)

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Members and Staff:

You don't seem to have much staff at your forum so I'll keep that part short and sweet. You appear to be managing the community quite well for only two administrators. One small detail is your co-administrator seems to have a post count on the low side. Not necessarily a big deal, but typically higher positions have fairly higher post counts. The daily post count seems to be well for the size of the forum, considering the current daily members. You should look into advertising a bit more aggressively to get more members and get more activity from existing members.

(18/25)

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Good Points: Good design and forum layout.

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Bad points: Activity could be a little better

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Total Score: 82/100

Thanks for the review. Will take on board what you said, especially the guest message feature.