Forum Name:
Webmaster Meets Administrator

Forum URL:
Webmaster Meets Administrator Forum

Comments:
*Post Edited* New Link: Webmaster Meets Administrator Forum

Overall Ratings per Category
Design
(3/5)

Guest Friendliness
(4/5)

Organization and Navigation
(4/5)

__________________
-Foxx
Major vBulletin Fan... Nothing Else.
I dream I will own a big-board one day. Yeah, one day...

It looks like your forum is down.

__________________
InsideUniversal.net
InsideUniversal.net Community

Try it again. It's on one of the best free hosts out there, but they're currently moving servers and hence making loading times really slow. It will hopefully be back to normal in the next few days. But it will load if you try a few times.

__________________
-Foxx
Major vBulletin Fan... Nothing Else.
I dream I will own a big-board one day. Yeah, one day...

Design
Category Rating: (3/5)
Category Comments:
design layout is very well implemented, nothing seems to be out of place, the flow of the site template looks good and simple. Color choice was good to. header image might be a little large, but i would not worry much about it as i am still able to see part of the forum with out having to scroll.

Guest Friendliness
Category Rating: (4/5)
Category Comments:
very friendly, i like how your site does not have ads for the guests, the idea that i am browsing the site almost like a member is a big plus for me. On the other hand a greeting message for the guest welcoming them to the forum and informing them what they get when they join would be nice.

Organization and Navigation
Category Rating: (4/5)
Category Comments:
Forum descriptions could be summarized, they just seem too long. Think about entering a sentence or even a couple words that would describe what that forum is about. might just be my own preference talking here.

The Forum topic layout is organized enough, i don't think someone could really get lost.

Thank you for the review and good ratings!

We'll be getting a welcome message soon. And I know the forum descriptions are kind of long... but for some reason I always thought it made forums look nicer like that. May just be me.

Thanks!

__________________
-Foxx
Major vBulletin Fan... Nothing Else.
I dream I will own a big-board one day. Yeah, one day...

Design
Category Rating: (1/5)
Category Comments:
Sorry for the small rate .. it's a stock them with little customization to it. I want to see more from a webmaster site

Try to implement a header created in photoshop for instance .. and the slice and put it on the site. It's not that hard, you just need to have a bit more time on your hands and some patience. Knowledge will follow.

I consider any forum needs to have a unique theme, a design forum needs it even more badly.


Guest Friendliness
Category Rating: (4/5)
Category Comments:
Even if the theme is a stock one and needs more work I am pleased as a visitor. There are no disturbing colours, nothing to scare me off. Good presentation. I would have given a 5 star rating if we had not such a default welcome message ... try to make it more personal. I know where to find the FAQ as a user, but I need to find out from you why registering would make my life better. Maybe put a nice list with features and who knows .. a nice image to accompany it.


Organization and Navigation
Category Rating: (3/5)
Category Comments:
Way too many categories for such a young site. And little content in them. You need to start 100 a day to make this look less barren. or at least .. 30 topics a day. Keep on addinng content and the forums will look better. It's a hard work to start a forum, especially in this niche, but you can make it.

Best of luck.

Don't mind my small ratings in some aspects, I am sure you will improve a lot and I'll be more than happy to increase them as quality in your site increases.

Design
Category Rating: (3/5)
Category Comments:
Overall, I think the design looks very nice (and clean). However, IMO, it looks a little bit too much like the MyBB default theme. Yes, you have customized it a bit (the forum icons, the logo, some of the colors, etc.), but it could use a bit more customization. For example, some of the key forum buttons (ie: New Reply, New Thread) are the MyBB default. If you modify them to blend in nicely with the customizations you made, it would look much better.

Another thing I noticed about the design is the blue highlight over the category names. While it's alright, it doesn't really blend in the with underlying shade of blue.

I like the logo, but I noticed that you left the cloud image from the default MyBB logo. Did you mean to do this? Either way, it looks nice!

Also, add a favicon (or consider it).


Guest Friendliness
Category Rating: (4/5)
Category Comments:
It's friendly, but if you make some of the changes mentioned above, it would be even more friendly (or, more inviting). One thing that SHOULD be changed, however, is the "Welcome Guest" message. Right now, it states the following:

Using the default message, in my mind, is a major "no no". Customize it a bit! Make guests feel like they are visiting a friendly, community-oriented forum, and not a cold, boring discussion community.


Organization and Navigation
Category Rating: (5/5)
Category Comments:
Nicely organized, and easy to navigate! It looks like you added a few extra tabs up in the right hand navigation area ("Staff Applications" and "WmA Directory"), which is a convenient place to put them. No real complaints in this category!

EDIT: Chris beat me. I was talking to dojo. I'll read your post now Chris.


Design:

Thanks but that is in no way a stock theme. It's highly customized and designed just for my forum. Just because it uses light colors does not mean it's not customized. My co-admin put a lot of work into making that one... and the other one too.

Guest Friendliness:

I know. I planned on changing it, but actually, I didn't even know it was activated. It wasn't supposed to be on yet, not until I write a better message. I'm going to have to fix that. Thanks for bringing it up.

Orginization and Navigation:

I know what you mean. I've never been one to have a lot of forums on my forum. But there's really nothing I can do about it when you think about it. Like, what forums would I get rid of? Dropping forums wouldn't work because that would limit the discussion you can have on either website or forums. I feel all of the forum are needed. And 100 topics a day? I don't think that's possible for me. I don't even make 100 posts a day on huge, active forums and I stay I'm on for at least 8 hours a day.

Thank you and please tell me you went to the Webmaster Meets Administrator Forum and not the one in the first post, right? I forgot to edit this thread with the new forum...

__________________
-Foxx
Major vBulletin Fan... Nothing Else.
I dream I will own a big-board one day. Yeah, one day...

Chris:

(I hope you went to the right forum too.)

You're right about the buttons. Although the main part of the theme, the index pages, is fully custom, the buttons (new thread etc.) are still MyBB default. We'll work on that when we catch up with other things. What do you mean with the blue highlight though? Actually, what blue highlight? Yes, I did want the MyBB cloud in the banner. I like it because it looks like the guy is chatting just how you would on the forum. As for the favicon... we have a favicon?

Yes, like I said above I didn't even know the guest message was activated. It wasn't supposed to be yet. Thanks and I will be adding a personalized message to it.

Thank you for the compliments about the links at the top.

Thanks for the review Chris!

__________________
-Foxx
Major vBulletin Fan... Nothing Else.
I dream I will own a big-board one day. Yeah, one day...

Design
Category Rating: (4/5)
Category Comments:
Clean looking, almost the same basic vB layout (which i'm used to). Although header image could be improved with more creativity.

Guest Friendliness
Category Rating: (5/5)
Category Comments:
Nothing major noticed while browsing as a guest, no ads at all, site looks the same as being a member (which works well to me).

Organization and Navigation
Category Rating: (4/5)
Category Comments:
Navigation looks very organized and clean, categories and/or forums are well sorted, almost every sub-forum needed.