[Snowman]

Forum Name:
Manchester Wide Forum

Forum URL:
Manchester Wide Forum

Comments:
Forum Name: Manchester Wide Forum Forum URL: ManchesterWide.com - Manchester Forum - Index Comments: After a lot of research I finally set up a forum for my home town of Manchester, England. This is my first forum ever. You never realize how much effort is involved in setting up a forum until you actually try it. I'd like some advice about my forum as although is about 6 - 7 weeks old few people are joining - its basically me and a few friends chatting back and forward. The rest of the membership is spam signups or people who join and don't post. The site includes about 25 html pages about Manchester - I thought this would drive traffic to the forum, but now I'm not sure. Is there anything obvious that I'm doing wrong? Any obvious errors? Any advice would be appreciated.

Categories for Review
Design
Features and Modifications
Guest Friendliness
Guidelines and Staff
Organization and Navigation

[Chris Suyeda]

Design
Category Rating: 3/5
Category Comments: The actual forum design is average. It's not fantastic, but it's not bad either. It's rather clean, but could use some further customization. I understand that your forum hasn't been open for too long, but from my own personal experience I try and customize my forum as much as I can before I go live. Each administrator has their own style of running their forums and such, so that's not the issue. Some examples of improvement that I noticed just on the main forum index is the banner and the forum icon (where it displays if it has a new thread/post or not). While the main banner is customizable for your forum is not really clean to match the rest of your theme. To me, it looks like you used MS Paint and just tossed together some pictures of local attractions and added some text -- and wa laa! It's not terrible! But if you can invest $5-$100, get a freelancer/professional to do create and design a new banner for you. Heck, I'm sure there are designers here who are very affordable. I don't know what your budget is, so I don't really know where to point you. The color theme of the forum is very easy on the eyes. While that color/shade is pretty common, I would say it's widely accepted (and appreciated by me so usually uses computers in the evening). Overall, I would say your forum design is basic. It's not terrible, but could use improvements to make your forum design more attractable to current and future members.

Features and Modifications
Category Rating: 0/5
Category Comments: As a guest, I don't see any features or modifications that have been added to the forums. While this particular niche is hard to find features/modifications that will work with your community there are plenty out there that are neutral to theme. Firstly, I would talk to your community and ask if there is anything they would particularly like to see at your forum and go from there. If it were my forum, I'd try and find a news feed for Manchester (a news bot or whatever would post threads about recent news articles about Manchester). That way your members could go to your forum and read the "paper" and while they are there, they might say "hey, look a new posts that interests me. lets go reply." Haha... an exaggerated scenario, but one that is likely. Customize my friend! Add modifications that will pull in new members! Turn those guests into active posting members. Offer something that other competing forums DON'T offer!

Guest Friendliness
Category Rating: 3/5
Category Comments: While you do have a brief few sentences at the top of the forum explaining what your community is all about -- it lacks in the welcoming department. There should be something saying "Hey, we want you here! Come join us and tell us a little about your Manchester experience!" I think that should be a priority. On the plus side, all your subforums are viewable to the guest. That's good in the sense that if a person happens to stumble upon your forum, they are able to read the content (which may or may not get them interested in becoming involved in the conversation. Overall, the guest friendliness could use some work. It's not telling them to go away, but it's also not welcoming them to the community. Think of it as a surprise party and less travel brochure!

Guidelines and Staff
Category Rating: 5/5
Category Comments: In my opinion, I get the feeling that your forum is suppose to be a laid-back forum. Not too many rules, but action will be taken to those who are just oblivious to the freedom they are given. While you don't have any real forum rules enforced (with the exception of the no politics/religion discussions), I can't really knock you on the guidelines aspect of this review. It's your forum; run it the way you see fit! I took a quick look at your member list and to my understanding you are the only staff member. Correct me if I am wrong, but from the looks of it, you're doing great! You're the most active member (generating content I assume). When I join a forum I like to think of the forum administrator as just another one of the guys, but someone I can go to if I have any concerns or suggestions. It's hard to do that when their name is ManchesterWide. While it let's everyone know that you are indeed the owner of the forum, it takes away from the personal level. We already know that administrators are the law, but we would still like to be on a face to face level when talking about our daily lives. Then again, every administrator likes to run things their own way!

Organization and Navigation
Category Rating: 5/5
Category Comments: Like I said in the "design" category, it's very clean. Your forum has specific topics you would like discussed, but not to the point where it would take me 5 minutes to scroll to the bottom of the page. The only real area I see that could use some improvement is the navigation to the rules. While there is a sticky in the general discussion subforum, I think it should also be included in the introduction subforum where all the new members see the rules right when they start. Great job otherwise!

Good luck with your forum and hope my review will shed some light on areas of improvement.

[Snowman]

Hi, Thanks for this very good, comprehensive Review - it is much appreciated.

Thinking about it I can agree with just about everything you said.

You are right - the logo has to go! I'm not sure if the design is putting people off joining, but perhaps the welcome message could be improved.

The big problem for this forum is getting members. I hope that this will sort itself over time.

Thanks again for your help, Ray