Social Signal

Graphics:
- Theme: A familiar one, I think. So it is not something special. Bright and simple. The bottom toolbar is a nice addition though. But the message in "Forum News" can be taken kinda offensive if you think about it ("Welcome Freak!"). I personally found it funny but who knows? I don`t know what else to say here. Maybe edit the theme to your own liking. Make something unusual in it. I know it`s almost impossible to make something original these days but that`s what the "almost" part is for. (6/10)
- Banner: Nice and shiny. I like it but do something about the text. It is pixelated a little. Matching colors. And there is some black lines on the left and right side of the bottom of the picture. Change those and it will perfectly match your forum. (7/10)
- Navigation Bar: Pretty empty. For guests at least. Only four buttons. And those four is made up from little icons on the left of the names. Make some real buttons here. So it would not seem this empty. (5/10)
- Icons: Nice icons for every category, but they are too big in my opinion. The icons are matching every category too. The topic icons are the regular ones with the theme, which is not so impressive in my eyes. I hope you will make some new ones. (6/10)
The sum of all is 24/40. Needs a little update.

Categories & Forums:
I see big problems with the sorting. The "Rules and Guidelines" should be on the top of the page and the "Trash" should be the last one there. Also those "Table Ad's" are in a very wrong place too. Put it either up or down on your page but neveer in the middle of it. Now... It is nice that you tried to "shorten" the page by putting five categories together but you did that with the "Social House". That way the reason you named the forum "Social Signal" has disappeared too from the index page. But either way, you should add some more categories and forums in there. For example, the "Must see movies" is a somewhat strict name for a category. Why don`t you rename it to "Movies". People could still post there trailers but any other things which is about movies (reviews, news etc.). And while we are here... You can make the same with TV shows and music also. So change the sorting and add some more categories. (11/20).

Usergroups:
A total of 2 groups. Since this forum is brand new, maybe you don`t need any more for now. But I suggest you to find some useful graphic designers or reviewers (to review anything social like movies or TV shows). Also change the order. Administrators should be displayed before moderators. And that`s it for now. (12/20)

Activity:
The page was created around 2010-02-21. Which means it is around 50 days old/young. After that 50 days you have 13 registered users and 71 messages. So you got 0,26 new member per day. Not a big number but advertising could do a little help for that. And now I see that there is some problem with your post counting on the index page. It says you have a total of 71 messages but I summed the actual posts of 4 members and it was 79. So I don`t know what to count here. You should look into that. Either way... It is a small number for the forum age I think. Don`t wait for your members to start their topics all the time. Just drop up a subject in "General chat" and the users will share their opinions. After some basic topics there will be users who will start to talk about other things too. If the staff is not active on a forum, that can be a bad sign for guests (and it usually is). (12/20)

More:
Keep or start advertising.

And so the average is 59/100 this time. Your forum is Average from my perspective in its current state. I hope you will get some more activity soon. Just don`t give up and work hard.