Forum Name:
The American Voters

Forum URL:
http://www.theamericanvoters.com/forums

Comments:
This is the site that Sir TVDinner and myself have joined forces on to bring to users for political discussion or general resource information about candidates for office (at this time only presidential candidates are available). We went on the idea of making a website with a forum rather than a forum with a few other pages. It also has some social bookmarking tools integrated with the topics. It uses a simple portal system that I put together for WowBB. All non forum pages are edited through the forum admin panel. We look forward to hearing your ideas and thoughts about our site!

Overall Ratings per Category
Design
(3/5)

Features and Modifications
(4/5)

Guest Friendliness
(4/5)

Guidelines and Staff
(4/5)

Organization and Navigation
(4/5)

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I hope some people take the time to review our new forum. We have worked very hard on it and it is a completely customized and modified board. Literally every aspect of the new website and corresponding forums has been made to dynamically grow ongoing. Most importantly the goal was to build a main site that was both a valuable resource AND directly linked to the forums.
Tonight and tomorrow we are adding pages and info for all past presidents and adding multiple articles to the ones already posted.

Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

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Design
Category Rating: (4/5)
Category Comments:
very well thought out, the design really empathizes on what the website is about too. the header logo might be a little to big, might just be my taste. But i do like that its GIF animated and not a static image

Features and Modifications
Category Rating: (3/5)
Category Comments:
i cannot tell what features or mods you have off hand, but it seems that you have some pretty informative pages that have everything to do with what your site is about.

Guest Friendliness
Category Rating: (3/5)
Category Comments:
Guest message is very large taking up alot of space, i would suggest you work on it summarizing just the main points, seeing as i have to scroll down for a while to get to the board is a negative for me, esspecially when i have to do it on every page i visit on the forums

Guidelines and Staff
Category Rating: (3/5)
Category Comments:


Organization and Navigation
Category Rating: (4/5)
Category Comments:
seems very well organized and clear for the members which forum is for what. Very simple yet very effective.

Thank you, the logo came naturally.

It is in fact very modified. Equipped with a portal (by me ) and various other features. I.E. Social Bookmarks, Sub Forums, Contact Form, etc. We tried to get as much information in without overloading the layout.

We contemplated this and felt the bigger the guest message, the more inclined people would be to register than view as a guest. The regular pages do not have this, just the forum pages.

There is a post in that forum that outlines who the staff is. Also, the staff has their role in parenthesis on the site.

Thank you. We decided to have the regular pages not show the forum navigation and have only the forum pages show the navigation and put the forum navigation underneath the main navigation when viewing forum pages.

Thank you for your review. I hope to see others soon!

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thanks for the review mnm

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The Biggest Boards | Political Disgust | JAMOOZA

Guest message was changed and is now an attractive image for guests that points to the register link

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Design
Category Rating: (3/5)
Category Comments:
I like the design of the forum, which speaks wonders about your topic. But I have one gripe about the design. To me, the use of solid colors feels very outdated. Try using gradients and see how they come out. Another suggestion would be to replace the gray with white to make the message stand out.

Features and Modifications
Category Rating: (4/5)
Category Comments:
You seem to have some cool features that are unique to your forum. I like the options you have available on the top of every topic that should give you more traffic. Hopefully your members will take advantage of it.

Guest Friendliness
Category Rating: (4/5)
Category Comments:
I guess Ashley is right when he said others will adapt to the "arrow" message. The forum seems very welcoming to guests. It doesn't pester me to register with fake Active X messages, pop up messages, or loud annoying banners. It just hands it out there with one simple introduction.

Guidelines and Staff
Category Rating: (4/5)
Category Comments:
Nice terms and conditions. It's very specific and leaves no room for questions or loopholes for members to exploit. It's handed out in a straightforward way. You staff also seems to be an active unit of your community, which encourages new members to register and look around at the topics created everyday.

Organization and Navigation
Category Rating: (4/5)
Category Comments:
Straightforward is all I can say. Everything is handed out when you first visit the index page.

Jon

Thank you very much for your review. We actually got the idea of the guest image to register by looking at your site and just loved the look of it and thought it would encourage guests to join more.

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Design
Category Rating: (3/5)
Category Comments:
The design itself is nice. The colors, of course, work well with the topic and things flow well.

However, in the same way one would finalize a track on a music album, the same needs done here:

• Header/Logo - The header itself goes nice with the entire style. However it does not include the name of the website. I think that is very important, as it will create an identity for you. You could put the name of the website "American Voters" and then under it put "The Choice is yours".
• Border - The 2-3px border around the table headers and categories should go. It does not fit, in my opinion. Could you possibly experiment with some different colored 1px borders?
• Status Icons - These could be done much better. The Photoshop included "Check Mark" is sort of bland. Maybe you could try an American Flag, a Dollar Bill, or something of the like?
  • Sub Forum Icons - The subforum icons are a bit confusing as well. The "New Post" icon, is a star that says vote. But the "Old Post" icon is a totally different icon. I guess it is personal preference, but usually I like making "Old Post" icons just a different color of the "new post" one, it makes it a little easier to know what is what, especially for new users.

That is it for now. As things progress I might stop in from time to time to post my suggestions.


Features and Modifications
Category Rating: (4/5)
Category Comments:
There is a vast array of modifications applied to this board. WoWBB does not seem to include sub forums or digg/delicious/like icons. The informational pages also add a nice touch of content to the forums. I would recommend, however, moving the Submit This Thread box (with the digg stuff in it) to the bottom of the thread, as it is large and distracts me a bit from the thread (which is the most important part). One thing I think could be so great, is to redo the userCP navigation a little. Is there any chance you could do it like Mybb, IPB, or vBulletin does it, with the links in a sidebar? It might be my personal preference, but I like that tons better than a top navigation. At an optimal level, I think the way PHPBB3 (the newest version) does it. http://www.phpbb.com/community/ucp.php That one has tabs at the top, and has specific options for each tab as a sidebar.

Guest Friendliness
Category Rating: (4/5)
Category Comments:
I do not have much to comment on here, I am generally pretty active there, and everyone is very friendly. One thing I would strongly recommend, though, is to get rid of any ads on the registration page. I believe that, per adsense use policy, you are not allowed to put adsense ads on a registration page.

Guidelines and Staff
Category Rating: (4/5)
Category Comments:
The staff is very friendly, and the rules were easy to find. Although, I would rather have a "Rules/Terms" link in the navigation, as to get to the rules, I have to go to a thread, then click on the link to find them.

Organization and Navigation
Category Rating: (4/5)
Category Comments:
It is generally easy to navigate around, and things are organized fairly well. I would suggest for you to put Announcements and Site Feedback at the very bottom of the forums, as they are not usually posted in. Your main attraction should be the first forums shown.