Forum Name: The Circle of Life Link: http://lifescircle.net Type of Review: Just a full forum review. Content, graphics, theme, etc. Extra Notes:
Review Accepted!Congratulations! You review has been accepted and will be completed by a review Team member shortly
@Jerlene My sincere apologies for the wait. Review Accepted!Congratulations! You review has been accepted and will be completed by a review Team member shortlyTindris is no longer on the team and so cannot complete the review, I will do your review instead
First Impressions: Unfortunately my absolute first impression is a bad one. The advertisement slot on the menubar does not fit in and honestly, it looks ugly to me. On a better note, the theme is very easy on the eyes and I love that shade of green. The advertisement slot in the statistics block looks out of place, I will go into that in more detail further into the review. One nice touch I noticed was in the footer : "The Circle of Life is best viewed in FireFox with a 1152x864 resolution. " I personally think that is a very nice touch. Based on first impressions, I would definitely register (20/25) ----------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------- ------------------- Look and Feel: As I have already mentioned, your theme is very nice and very easy on the eyes, I cant really suggest anything more from the theme perspective. Now, back to the advertisements, this is what I think you should do: Create an adverts block at the bottom of the forum, you could put a few ads in there, not only adSense ones, but you could create an Image ad Service. There are a few advantages to having an ad box, the main one being that it is neat. The text links section below the menubar is fine where it is, but you may want to remove a few of the "Your Link Here" links because there are so many of them that it makes the links a bit less exclusive , and it also makes it seem like nobody wants to buy any of them if you have so many available ones, which can put people off. I'd also like to compliment you on the logo, it's simple yet effective. I also like the fact that your forum is very smooth and "flowing" if that makes sense. I know this seems to contradict what I said about the easy on the eyes theme, but you might want to make the forum a little bit brighter, not neccessarily by editing the theme's entire look, but by editing the new/no new posts buttons to make them seem a bit more fun. I'd also like to point out that on your menubar, the "Register" link is just below the bar, half on the background image and half on the white part just below, it looks a bit messy. I would post an image but I think you know what I mean. Overall a good look and feel, but it needs some improvement. (17/25) ----------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------- ------------------- Organisation: Right, organisation-wise your forum is good. My only slight qualm with your board's organisation is the tabs, maybe its just me, but I think those tabs are really only needed if you have a hell of a lot of forums per category or just a lot of categories. You might say that "I do have a lot of categories" but a lot of your forums could be made into subsections. Personally I think you should get rid of the tabs. Important note: Your VIP section is publically viewable, and your link to the staff section is too, though clicking on the link to the staff room just removes the tabs and shows the board in the standard list view. There's really not much else to say here (21/25) ----------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------- ------------------- Members and Staff: While I can't see a list of your staff (you really should make a staff page, or at least a staff list thread), I believe that you have a good staff to member ratio. Your staff could stand to be a little bit more active though, not that they are completely inactive, its just that it helps to have very active staff. Members are well mannered and the mods appear to be doing their job, well done (22/25) ----------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------- ------------------- Good Points: Lovely theme. ----------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------- ------------------- Bad points: Some parts of your site are a bit messy. ----------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------- -------------------Again, my sincere apologies for the wait, it will not happen again
Thank you for the review. I will read through this thoroughly and get back to you with my feedback. I agree about the ad slots and I was actually going to remove it. It was only there for my contest sponsors but the contest doesn't seem to be happening.
