July 2007 Forum of the Month

Current stats:

• Owner: BamaStangGuy
• Age: 4 years, 3 months
• Members: 4,812
• Posts: 400,000+

Final Thoughts (majority opinion of the AdminFusion staff):

There really is a lot that makes Mustang Evolution special, from the design to its age to its success in a competitive industry to its content, and more.

Let's start with perhaps the most impressive aspect of Mustang Evo: its age. Mustang Evolution was founded over 4 years ago, and as you can see, it is still going strong. It is hard to "make it" in the forum industry. Most forums fail within the first 6 months, and the vast majority fail within the first year. The fact that Mustang Evo is still going strong after over 4 years of existence is a huge testament to its success. It is not just "getting by" either, as it averages upwards of 450 posts per day.

Next is dedication. This could really have been lumped into the last paragraph, but it deserves a special mention. ME has had the same owner all 4 years. The owner, BamaStangGuy, has also said that he spends anywhere from 8-10 hours daily in his forums. To be able to do that for 4 years means a lot to the forums and its community and is also shown through the multiple "real life get-togethers" that the members of Mustang Evo participate in.

Let's keep talking about the success of Mustang Evolution. These forums are in an incredibly competitive niche. While the Mustang might not be a great car (yeah, that's right, I said it! -Ryan), it is an extremely popular car with a very dedicated fan base. There are a lot of big forums out there that pose competition to Mustang Evolution, but it has still managed to hold its ground, and then some.

Moving on to the more concrete aspects of ME...The design is wonderful. The design is extremely clean, it is based largely on CSS (a new concept), and it is very friendly to dial-up users. Another important aspect of web design is consistency, and the sitewide navigation at the top of Mustang Evo provides this. The colors fit the site very well, and as one of our staff members said: "Man that is American!"

Content is also never-ending at Mustang Evolution. This is something that is not always considered important in a forum, because some people think that content only needs to be in the threads and posts themselves - not true. The site is jam-packed with news, articles, pictures, car specifications, and more stuff in addition to the posts themselves. The forums have also been very heavily modded for the good while still remaining current with the latest version of vBulletin. When so many mods and hacks are installed in forums, 1 of 2 things typically happens:

1 - The forums become over-modded and cluttered
2 - The forums have so many mods that the owner never updates the core software.

BamaStangGuy has managed to heavily mod his forums while still avoiding both of these stigma. All in all, great forums, Bama. Keep up the good work.

To congratulate BamaStangGuy, you can go to our announcement here

__________________
...some super-sweet signature