Forumotion Review 2

The SpongeBob Community

Ok, starting my first impression with the portal since its the first page I saw when I opened the link, first of all, I'd say that the forum doesn't have that constant colors or design on the forum, I;m seeing different colors from the background colors of the forum and the forum's color scheme which is a bit confusing, to go further, I'd say that the portal looks incomplete for me as a guest since I can't see any widget between the widgets on column1(left) & column3(right), there should be a widget standing there so that it doesn't look the portal is under construction, I suggest you placing a news widget on the middle, that should fix the appearance of the portal, it should have been better with it, although I must say that the portal looks organized overall, ok, when I came to the index, the colors are more confusing for me, the background, the whole forum's color scheme and the color of category tables, they're all different which looks confusing, really, I'll explain more later on the lay out part, the index looks good and neat and it could have been better if you stick on 1 color scheme only, and I'm not in favor of showing the sub forums on the index which should be hidden, it looks better, the graphics are fine, Everything seems fine! Just need some modification to some parts of the forum.

Let's start mainly with the graphics of the forum, to the major graphics, starting with the banner, I definitely think that the banner is fine, very fitting for your spongebob forums although I feel that it's lacking something, I would suggest you adding a background to it, like background such as sea, ocean, etc. but can be seen on any episode of spongebob something related to spongebob, Try adding more designs to it. To your navigation bars, they're fine, I saw this kind of navigation bars and they're not new to me, but they're nice and very fitting for the color scheme of the forum which is cyan. So I think that's fine. To the forum icons(new post, no new post & forum is locked), I say they are nice for the forum, keep that up, to your 'Who is Online?' icon, I'd say it looks cool, an animated 'Patrick' looks gorgeous & 'eyecatchy' there, that's nice.
Now to the categories & forums/organization of the forum, I guess you have this nice and unique set of forums on the index, I think they're all fine for the forum. Ok, with the organization of the categories & forums on the index, actually, I saw some wrong/unprofessional positioning of forums on the index, first of all, I would suggest to put your announcement forum after the 'rules' forum you have, It's definitely more important than your guest forum, it'll be more noticable, and also, one more thing, I suggest you to place your off-topic category(Nautical Non sense) to the last portion of the index, categories with forums related to the forum's subject should be placed at nearly top to get the forums more noticed & to make the index look attractive and professional, try to fix those things. Also, as I suggested from the first impression part, try hiding the sub forums from the index, it's made to be hidden, it'll look better.
Ok, Now to the forum's color scheme, as I'd mentioned earlier, I'm a little bit confused with the color scheme of the forum, your background is darkblue with floral flower figures, the forum's body color is cyan and the category tables are in yellow, so that makes it really confusing, I suggest you sticking on 1-2 colors only, combination of yellow and cyan would be great for a spongebob forum, try also making the color of the background lighter, it'll look better then.

Overall, the activity the forum has is considered brilliant! I'm seeing a smooth flow of posting & users activity onto the forum which really looks nice, to go further, starting with the posting activity of the forum, I say that you had a brilliant impression on this criteria, Every forum seems to have lots of posts and there are new posts being made to most of the forums, the total amount of posts(28,954 posts) is brilliant achievement for the number of members you have, keep that up for the posting activity, ok, now to the users activity, I'm definitely also seeing a very nice activity here, I'm seeing lots of members being logged in the past 24 hours, It also looks brilliant to see atleast 5-7 users being online while I' reviewing the forum, pretty good activity. Keep that up.

Starting with the groups, I'm definitely counting 5 groups, and seeing a very nice set and amount of groups you have, although I'm seeing a problem with the color of 1 of the group(Members group), try making it a little darker since it's blending to the light color scheme the forum has, ok, now, to the amount of staff, I'm counting only 4 administrators, although I'm considering that the forum has lots of members logging in each period, 4 admins is quite many because I don't see the point of getting so many admins, I only recommend 3 admins, 3 moderators are fine, and for graphics designers, you definitely need to hire atleast 2-3 considering the activity of the forum.

I don't see quite new features from the forum, although I'm seeing quite unique forums on the index and with some graphics.

Wumbology wrote:Couldn't you have just made Rubber Ducky's topic Breaking News?

Steel Sponge wrote:A C-? Oh yeah.

Wumbology wrote:

Steel Sponge wrote:A C-? Oh yeah.

American grades are weird. It would be a B here in Canada.

storytime7 wrote:A C-? woohoo!!! We're average!!!

SG10 wrote:

storytime7 wrote:A C-? woohoo!!! We're average!!!

Actually, on our grading scale, it would be considered a D+

teenj12 wrote:

SG10 wrote:

storytime7 wrote:A C-? woohoo!!! We're average!!!

Actually, on our grading scale, it would be considered a D+

Aww man..

Surreal Death Dog wrote:

Wumbology wrote:

Steel Sponge wrote:A C-? Oh yeah.

American grades are weird. It would be a B here in Canada.

Canadian grades are weird to us and vice versa.

Queen Malie wrote:I saw several typos in that review.