*NOTE*
When awarded, these forums were running on IPB with the skin you see below. Since then, the forums have reverted to phpBB on a different skin.



January 2006 Forum of the Month

CaMiNation

A true Apple community where all Mac and iPod owners or soon-to-be owners are invited. It was launched just six weeks ago on December 14, 2005.

Current stats:

• Owner: Caitlyn
• Age: 1 month, 17 days
• Members: 66
• Posts: 1,996

Final Thoughts (majority opinion of the AdminFusion staff):

Overall, the highlight of the forum is definitely the design. It is very clean and bright which fits Macs perfectly and is also quite user-friendly, a common goal of Apple regarding their product line. The colors are great, though the varying colors at the top of the forums do distract from the design elsewhere. The use of Apple logos has been executed nicely especially the use of similar logos for the threads themselves - a nice touch.

The amount of posts definitely shows good activity, although it would be nice to see the number of members grow as well, but it's moving along nicely. It is clear that there is a solid base of dedicated members, though non-posting members are plentiful. There are a lot of Mac owners out there, so attracting new members can be done with a relative amount of ease.

Lots of nice infomation, and it is well presented. If anything, a bit more discussion on some of the topics would be nice to see. A section with tutorials or hardware reviews would also be nice to see. There seems to be a good amount of quality posts. Everyone from the members to the staff appear dedicated to making this site successful. The staff at CaMiNation are definitely friendly, visible, and ready to help. They are quick to say hello to new members and create new topics. They also appear to do their best to assist others with questions they may have.

The modifications have been implemented very well, as the balance is quite nice. There are plenty of mods, but at the same time they are not overdone. The registration modification at the top of the main page is really nice - an excellent tool to convert visitors to members. The gallery option is also nice, as it adds to the depth of this forum.

Kudos for the forums being Mac-only, as we don't know of many of these out there, however, it could be developed farther so that there is more there than just forums. Furthermore, given that the forums are Mac-only, we would have expected more discussion, as well as graphics, geared solely towards Mac instead of Apple in general.

Great forums, great design, great potential. Good luck in your future endeavors, Caitlyn and CaNiNation!

To discuss these forums and congratulate Caitlyn on the award, please go here.