Can someone please review my forums, Speculation Central?

This forum just opened a few days ago and I am in the process of advertising to get more members.

Any constructive criticism is welcome.

Thanks.

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Initial Impression
I'm noticing the "beveled" effect on the network bar at the top. I'm aware that networks are a great way to buffer and distribute traffic among your websites, but that is very ugly; it doesn't even match your color scheme.

Organization and Feel
Forums: The number of forums you have is pretty good, I would advise to combine and cut down on 1-2 forums at the very beginning, as one forum category that looks busy looks alot better than many that look as though they have no activity.

Welcome Message: Your welcome message blends in a little too much. Personally, I like to make the background of the welcome message a contrasting color (In your case, red) so that it is noticeable and will draw more people to clicking the "register" button. As per the welcome message:
If I were you, I would take a pen, and recite a good welcome speech to yourself, and write it down as you talk. What you're doing for your welcome message is called an "idiom" and it's using way too many commas (which I believe is a "comma splice"). Welcome messages are not meant to be complex or full of complex words, but they are supposed to be warming. By saying that your message is an idiom, I'm saying that no one speaks like that, which makes it ever so complicated and hard to understand. Try clearing up the welcome message: Make it precise and to the point.

Skin and Modifications
Generally I would criticize someone for using a style that anyone could use, but because the site is new, I wouldn't spend money on a custom style. Most things flow correctly, but a couple things I did notice:

• There is a LARGE empty blue space in the footer, there's nothing in it, it's just there (under all the copyright stuff); dont waste space: get rid of the space or put an ad there to make the site look "full".
• As I said on initial impression, The black network bar at the top does not work. It does not compliment your style at all and steals all the attention. If you can, change it so it blends in a bit more.
• Icons: The icons don't really fit. They look like they were rushed. I bet you could design or find some better ones, look around as they really weaken the flow of things.

Guidelines and Staff
No real problems here. The rules were easy to find (although maybe a link on the navbar would help) as well as very well constructed, and you are the only moderator/administrator there. The moderators or co-administrators you use should be very active at your forum or a close friend (DO NOT allow random people claiming they "have experience" moderate or administrate your forum).

Recommended Changes

• Try to get the network bar at the top to blend more.
• Cut down on the amount of forums.
• Change the background of the guest message to a more contrasting color; eliminate comma splices and idioms from the guest message.
• General Style Cleanup: Icons and style bugs (listed above)

Good Luck.

Thanks for your review.

I was going to change the network bar so it blends in more, but I haven't had time to do that. It's going to take a bit of work though because the forums in the network are owned by different people, so I have to customize the bar on my forum only.

As for the forum icons on the style; the default icons were actually very similar to that (where they were purposely blocks/pixelated), and I want to keep the same feel. And I changed them to obviously customize the style as a whole more.

And I understand what you mean for the welcome message. I'll be changing that soon.

Again, thanks.

__________________
Speculation Central - Thinking about the future... today!

UROCA Forums - Home of the NationStates roleplaying region UROCA