Beyond Word community review

[Tigris]

-Forum URL: http://beyondword.forumotion.net
-Request Type: overall overview

[Cafetin]

Your review is the next in line now.

Thanks for your patience.

[Cafetin]

And finally your review is in progress.

[Cafetin]

I have encountered a slight problem here Tigris. I can only see one category on your forum ("Front Desk") and that`s all. This way I can`t review the other categories. Please if you want an overall overview, make it accessible for guests for the next 12 hours. If you will not reply me here in the next 24 hours, I will have to skip that part and you will lose 20 points right in the beginning. And I don`t want that to happen so please make it visible. Thanks.

[Cafetin]

I am really sorry that I could not see your forums after all. So I wrote this review almost without it...

"Nothing is personal in a review"

My rating table:
91-100 - Unexpectedly Awesome
76-90 - Awesome
61-75 - Pretty Nice
41-60 - Average
21-40 - Below Average
0-20 - Fail

Graphics:
- Theme: Still the same as before. Still clear and simple. I can say nothing new here, so I will not write down the same thing I wrote in your previous review. But I will quote it for you.

Spoiler:

(7/10)
- Banner: I see you changed some banners here. And it is better this way. No more color problems. At least on those I have seen (yes I hit the refresh button about 50 times). Nicer use of outer glows and embosses. I only found one problematic image now. The one which says "Anime" on the right bottom side of it (sorry, I don`t know which anime is that). You placed your logo and "Beyond Words Community" in the wrongest place you could. Right into the faces of two characters. I suggest you change that. Aside from this, it is very nice. (8/10)
- Navigation Bar: Same as before too. And now I realized that I don`t like green too much. Except for that, nothing new here... Unfortunately. (5/10)
- Icons: Here is the part where I say that I am glad that you have followed some of my suggestions. Now the topic icons on the index page are showing some imagination and that is good. The egg on them is a nice idea. I like that. And the little cage is nice too as a "Locked Topic". The same goes for the smaller ones inside the forums (although I could only see one forum as a guest). And I see you changed the gradient fade to make it smoother. Nice. But seems like nothing is perfect. The icon for "New/No New Posts [Popular]" is the same. You should make some recolor or something to make it different. The same goes for New/No New Posts [Locked] too. And one little thing... Make the sticky icon smaller. Make it the same size as the other ones. This should do it for now. (7/10)
The sum of all is 27/40. I see you are trying to change some things and that is good. You are getting there. It is Pretty Nice this time.

Categories & Forums:
Here is the part which I am mad about. How do you expect new members when you don`t show them anything about your forum? All I could see is the rules of the forum. That wont lure anybody to join, you know that right? I don`t know what`s going on with the forum but I highly advise that you make some forums visible to guests too. And since I can`t register on every forum I review, I didn`t do it this time either. So I have nothing to say here as I don`t know if there were any changes made here or not. I will just reduce 10 points from your last rate on this category. (5/20).

Usergroups:
You still have only tree group. And I still don`t know what an agent is doing. Is an agent just advertising or what? It is not so hard to put up a description in my humble opinion. So everything is the same here too. And I guess that means the same amount of points as before. (13/20)

Activity:
You have a total of 68 members (you got two new member since the last review) which means - as the site is about 165 days old -, you have 0.41 new member per day. Since last time it was 0.50, we can see that people are losing interest in your forum before hitting the register button. And the recently connected tab still shows only 3 members in 24 hours. The number of posts is 3131 now (was 2750 last time). What can I say? The number of active posters are still the same and the main difference between the previous postcount and the current is mainly made by the admin itself. I hope it will change soon. (10/20)

More:
I have some tips for you. First of all... Make the forums visible to the guests too. Without that, there is not too much chance of getting new users. And if you did that, try out this:
Change the theme. But twice! First, try out some brighter one (preferably not one with vibrant colors like the current one), make a topic about it for your members and ask them if they like it or not. Put up a poll too. So, keep the bright theme for a week. Then change it to a darker one. Do the same thing as with the bright one and see the difference. That way you will know how many of them actually likes the theme and you can find out their taste of liking. I think it`s worth a try. And besides, you can always return to the current one.

And so the average is 55/100 this time. You fell back to Average with this "I`m not showing our topics just when you register." thing. People don`t like that. I don`t like it either.

[Joel]

Completed
30 BoilingPoints deducted

Cafetin, next time please deduct his boiling points, dont wait for me;)

[Tigris]

OK thanks cafetin... Ok I have hiddened some of the permisions as a test. Due to the number of uncontributing lurkers.

[Cafetin]

Oh, I still didn`t locked this?

Anyway... You are welcome.
And so it`s locked.




P.S.: Okay, Joel.

[Sponsored content]