Forum Name:
Multi Talk 2

Forum URL:
http://multitalk2.com

Comments:
Multi Talk 2 is a community for people to discuss anything in the entertainment industry, from Television, Music, Video Games and Movies. Specific areas are available to discuss and review episodes, and merchandise of The Simpsons, Futurama and Television shows Bam Margera has produced (Viva La Bam and Jackass).Members can also post fan fiction, comics, art and flash movies they've made as well, and of course the traditional Off Topic and Arcade areas as well.Powered by SMF 1.1.2 -AwwLilMaggie

Overall Ratings per Category
Design
(3/5)

Features and Modifications
(5/5)

Guest Friendliness
(4/5)

Guidelines and Staff
(4/5)

Organization and Navigation
(4/5)

__________________
Gary M. Gadsdon
SMF Customiser

The Cutest Baby | Multi Talk 2 | Simple Machines Forum

Design
Category Rating: (3/5)
Category Comments:
I don't know with this. You have a great logo, and the custom board icons is a nice feature, but the theme just doesn't appeal to me. It just seems too boxy.


Features and Modifications
Category Rating: (5/5)
Category Comments:
I can see you heavily modded this forum. As an experienced SMF user, I'm quite impressed. Out of curiosity, did you use the code I posted for that registration bar? If so, I'm flattered


Guest Friendliness
Category Rating: (4/5)
Category Comments:
I love registration bars! That's a definite A+ for your forum. However, I think you're lacking some critical things. I think that you should display a little message saying what your forum is about, and maybe give guests some more reasons to register. Tell them about some feature your forum has that no other forums of its kind have.


Guidelines and Staff
Category Rating: (4/5)
Category Comments:
You've pretty much got the rules covered, but I noticed something:
Definitely throw a "don't" in front of that. You just know that one rebellious member is going to haunt you on that rule Also, you may want to sound more professional, but given the T.V. nature of your forum, it might be a good touch, so it's up to you.


Organization and Navigation
Category Rating: (4/5)
Category Comments:
It seems a little overwhelming at first, but after a few seconds of looking around, I have a pretty good idea where everything is, so good job. To make your forum even better organized, I suggest you work on that top navigation tab. I know SMF is a nightmare to deal with for template modifications, but I think that a navigation panel that stretches across the width of the website would be very useful.

Design
Category Rating: (3/5)
Category Comments:
I think the "Moderators" section which is after the "Last Post" section, should be removed as its making it too "squashed" together, which makes it too untidy for my likings.

Features and Modifications
Category Rating: (5/5)
Category Comments:
Im not a SMF expert so its hard for me to judge this, though everything else seems pretty nice. However, if there is a welcome message mod then id suggest installing it.

Guest Friendliness
Category Rating: (4/5)
Category Comments:
Basically what htmlmaster mentioned, a welcome message and reasons why the visitors should join is GREAT! There are alot of other forums similar to yours, so why not join someone else's. This could bring in more people.

Guidelines and Staff
Category Rating: (4/5)
Category Comments:
In the board rules topic, id suggest not to use red, its hard to see with the purple, i suggest that you try using yellow text. I believe that it isnt a good idea to have the board rules uncomplete, it could cause confusion. I like how you put in some funny phrases such as in rule 17 , it will make the reader basically keep on reading as it isnt "boring". I think that rule 13 can be stopped by simply using a modification that will limit the amount of smilies used in a post. I found it hard to find out who the staff are and who aren't by their username titles, as there is alot of users with different colours.

Organization and Navigation
Category Rating: (5/5)
Category Comments:
I love the way you had the "Useful Links" done. It isnt easy to miss the top navigation, it was the first thing that caught my eyes when i visited the forum, great job on that. Even though im not fermiliar with SMF, i found my way around the forum pretty easily.

Sorry, but I didnt, I took what came with the mod and pasted it into my style_[colour].css files.

We have a welcome board, but maybe I'll edit that "Notice for quests" topic into a welcome message from me, etc... etc... (I'm sure you get the idea)

Ooooops! Good eye. I tend to not really think much. The rules are being updated at the moment anyway, We're just discussing them in the "Area 51-A" and some are going to be ditched.

I think there is. I dont really want to install too many mods anymore particularly since I'm planning on upgrading to 2.0 soon.

Guest Friendliness
I'll get on that. Or I can just get one of my staff to do that.

I actually need to get rid of the red entirely. When logged in we have a colour changer where you can select out of ten colours which one you want to use. And one of those is red.

If Clive_Evil_C has anything to say about it, it'll probably be even funnier.

True. I gotta get around to installing it and upgrading it to 2.0. ;P

I suppose you're right. I do wanna ditch a couple, but I dunno what.

Keep the reviews coming!

__________________
Gary M. Gadsdon
SMF Customiser

The Cutest Baby | Multi Talk 2 | Simple Machines Forum

Design
Category Rating: (4/5)
Category Comments:
Great logo I really like the custom icons and general feel of the forum. It feels fun and inviting. I really liked it. To get a better feel for the forum I registered and joined and added all of my info to my profile and made a few quality posts to see how the posts would look, signatures would look, etc. I was impressed with all of it. I also like the different shades of blue you are using. Very easy to distringuish the different sections and forums.

Features and Modifications
Category Rating: (4/5)
Category Comments:
I think just about every modification you can add is on this forum, lol. Very nice job. I did like the non registered bar that I saw before registering, but I talk more about this in the next section. I like that there is a private messages notification at both the top and bottom of the front page. I can only find one thing at all that is missing and that is the breadcrumb (current location) stream at the bottom of each page. Currently it is only at the top of each page. On really long threads you have to scroll all the way back up to the top.

Guest Friendliness
Category Rating: (4/5)
Category Comments:
1) I would add more text for non members - more of a welcome message. the bar up top is nice, but does not explain enough 2) I like how a guest can view all of the topics and posts to get a better idea of what the site is about. 3) overall the site is very guest friendly.

Guidelines and Staff
Category Rating: (4/5)
Category Comments:
I might suggest changing the name of this forum TCB Updates to TCB Rules and Updates or something like that, but in general you have everything very clear and well laid out. Nice job.

Organization and Navigation
Category Rating: (4/5)
Category Comments:
Again - very well done. The front page does not seem overly long and each section is clearly defined. You have the rules at the top of the forums so people will not break them. Good!

Thanks for the very nice review TVDinner.

Though about the board "TCB Updates" is actually what it is, its the content updates to the main site that hosts the forum, The Cutest Baby, it's a small Maggie Simpson fan site. Because I got sick of updating with cutenews I started to make use of the forum for it instead. (link in sig)

Good point. I'll add the link tree back to the bottom, I took it out before because I didnt really like it there, but it's sort of grown on me from SM.org.

Thank for the feedback.
Gary

__________________
Gary M. Gadsdon
SMF Customiser

The Cutest Baby | Multi Talk 2 | Simple Machines Forum