The Blog of Suedama

Review By: Santos
Date: May 21, 2006
Original Review: Here

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Forum Name: Stylish Layouts
Number of Members: 8
Number of Posts: 4
Quality of Staff: 2
Appearance: 6
Originality: 2
Activity: 3
Layout: 9
Overall: 4.9 [Average]

Comments:
Suggested Members for 2 Months: 75
Suggested Posts for 89 Members: 4900

I’m noticing a lot of familiar faces on the staff force at Stylish Layouts. Many of these people are fairly decent at being staff members, but because these members are staff at every other resource board you can imagine, there are some problems created. First I would like to point out those staff members who haven’t been on your forum in days: Metroid2005 hasn’t been on since May 7, 2006; Apostilas hasn’t been on since April 15, 2006; olafmelberg hasn’t be on since April 22, 2006; Pointwiz hasn’t been on since April 22, 2006; Syncratic hasn’t been on since May 14, 2006. Most of those staff members just listed are on the one team that is known for being active and posting: the Community Team. There is no need to have these inactive staff members on your board, they are doing you a disservice by wearing a staff title. You should demote all staff members who haven’t been online and all Community staff members who have a low amount of posts, perhaps under 50. Then you should hire some members that actually post and help around the community instead of those members that happen to be staff at some other big resource board. Perhaps see how Omari and Roxas would do on the Community Team, they seem to be the highest posters that aren’t staff. Lastly the one big service you offer lacks superb quality. I see only three layouts in your database, all of which don’t include detailed forum descriptions. Forum descriptions make up about half of a good layout, so if you’re going to offer layouts then at least include those. I have to say that I just don’t agree with a forum based on providing layouts. By showing members a list of layouts to use you are promoting that they use the layout. When everyone starts using this same layout then all forums start to look alike and will become unoriginal. I really don’t think layouts is the way to go, but at least take my other suggestions regarding staff. By doing this your quality of staff score will be much better.

I’ve seen this skin before, probably at InvisionFree Skin Zone a while back. The very first thing I noticed was that the borders of the skin don’t match the body of the skin at all. Sure both are shades of green, but it is kind of like me having a dark blue background and a flashing light shade of blue on top. It isn’t supposed to work. When I was browsing around I only saw a single default graphic, the ‘to the top’ graphic. You should make sure that when you install a skin and its buttons that you install everything there is. Overall I really think that you should just get a new skin. The skin has some excellent graphics-work in it, but because it’s all green it creates a sort of… ugly appeal if you don’t mind my saying so. Don’t take this as avoid green skins, quite the contrary. Most resource boards do indeed avoid green skins because they never seem to work, so if you find or create a good looking green skin by all means use it – it’ll help your board’s originality quite a bit. I do hope you get that custom skin sometime. As I said, the current skin just isn’t working too well. Try finding a new skin either here or at InvisionFree Skin Zone and your appearance score will be quite better.

And here is the enemy of all resource boards: the originality score. You should feel quite accomplished… You have two things that I have only seen at a couple of other forums: Forum Diaries and Layout suggestions. Everything else on your board completely lacks in originality. I understand that it’s tough trying to do things differently from other boards, and that is why an odd idea has been growing on me lately. Try coming up with ideas that are completely unrelated. Perhaps have a writing contest, a Battle of the Bands for the musicians on the board, sports charts for when football is in season. At this point anything at all will make the board more interesting, even things that are completely unrelated from resources. In fact I think that by having far-fetched ideas like these will actually make your originality much better and intrigue members into being a part of the community. It’s a crazy idea, but you ought to give it a shot.

Suggested Posts Per Day: 40
Suggested Active Members: 50

I should expect no less from a forum based on layouts, yours is nearly flawless. The only thing that I would change about it is to remove the “Forum Led By” text in the forum descriptions. For easy reference, here is the link to the code that removes this text. Lastly the way you present the sub-forum names in the main forum descriptions is a bit tacky. Perhaps if you make it something like “[ Completed | Trashed ]” for forums like the Layout Reports the forum descriptions will come off as more organized. Be sure to shorten the names of the sub-forums when adding those names to the main forum descriptions. You have received a deserved layout score for your forum. I hope that you take my other suggestions in to mind and act upon my comments. I do indeed thing that your forum will be much improved if you consider what I wrote in this review. I hope you find this of aid, thank you for choosing ZetaBoards Creative Styles.

Checklist:

• Metroid2005 hasn’t been on since May 7, 2006
• Apostilas community moderator with 4 posts
• Low posting community moderators
• Apostilas hasn’t been on since April 15, 2006
• olafmelberg hasn’t been on since April 22, 2006
• Pointwiz hasn’t been on since April 22, 2006
• Syncratic hasn’t been on since May 14, 2006
• Omari and Roxas decent posters (members)
• Layout/review thing lacks quality
• To The Top graphic is default
• Borders of skin don’t match body shade
• Team colors don’t work with skin
• Banned doesn’t match body shade
• Forum Diaries slightly original
• Layout ideas slightly original
• Everything else unoriginal
• No posts have been made today
• Get rid of Forum Led By:
• Sub-forum names in descriptions presented better

Review By: Santos
Date: May 21, 2006
Original Review: Here

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Forum: ZetaBoards Mansion
Number of Members: 10
Number of Posts: 10
Quality of Staff: 6
Appearance: 5
Originality: 1
Activity: 9
Layout: 7
Overall: 6.9 [Average]

Comments:
Suggested Members for 1 Month: 50
Suggested Posts for 100 Members: 5000

The services that ZetaBoards Mansion offers is nothing special… It is hard to make a board seem unique since all resource boards seem alike today, but what you can do is provide exceptionally good services. This is where the quality of staff comes in. I checked to see what the quality of reviews and skins are and I am sad to say that they aren’t too great. The skin requests filed use a style of skinning that is long ‘out of fashion.’ You might as well not offer skin requests until you have an established skinning team and database. For reviews you need to make sure that you not only point out the mistakes of the forum but also provide specific details to how to fix the errors. In fact you have a review team that has yet to write any reviews… Get Ambience up and writing so that your review team can be better established, or just hire some more reviewers that are good. The most curious issue about your board is that you have a Community Team with low amounts of posts. Typically those on the Community Team are known for posting a lot and being helpful throughout the forums. I suggest that you demote those on the community Team with less than 100 posts and promote the Very Important Members Woozie and Millar if their attitudes are acceptable. That should make your Community Team look better than it is currently, no offense to those already on the team. I know that Default is on the team but something tells me that she was just promoted because she is staff here and she runs InvisionFree Management, much like the reason Jay was promoted…? Overall you should make sure that your staff perform with top quality and that they are active, so make it a policy that staff members who are not active will be demoted. With some changes in the system, the quality of staff score will be better.

I’m not all that impressed by the appearance of your forum. The first thing I noticed was that all of the shades of green do not match with each other. There’s dark greens and light greens all over the place which creates a not so pleasant look in my opinion. I suggest getting a different skin that is more complex. A resource board of all forums shouldn’t have such a simple skin. I understand that Default might have given you that skin, so be sure to thank her for her contributions to the forum whether you decide to change the skin or not. It is also brought to my attention that there are some graphics from another skin being used on this one, for example the pips. Well perhaps those graphics are specifically for this skin, but it doesn’t appear that way to me. I really think that getting a new skin and a graphics set that matches it perfectly would be best. See if your skin team can make a skin, if not then check out what you can find a Creative Styles or at InvisionFree Skin Zone. I really think that a new skin would better improve your appearance score.

I have to be quite frank about your board’s originality… there is none. This is the hardest area of running a resource board, it is near impossible to be original. You should gather all of your staff and brainstorm of new ideas constantly. You might even do well to hire a staff force simply to think of new ideas. In fact you should bring in some features that are completely unrelated to forum resources, just to make things interesting. Just do anything you can to make your forum more original, whether it means writing news articles or having writing contests or a photography contest. Anything would help at this point if another board isn’t doing something similar. Keep brainstorming of new ideas and your originality score will be improved.

Suggested Posts Per Day: 50
Suggested Active Members: 58

There is only one suggestion that I can give regarding the layout of your forum. Instead of having the graphics and skins categories separate, you should combine them both into a Styles Residence category. Merge the member and staff skin forums into a single Skin Database. Then merge the member and staff graphics forums into a single Graphics Database. Then delete the Skin Requests forum, replacing it with a Graphics Requests forum. Lastly combine the Graphics and Skin Department forums into a single Styles Department forum. Put the remaining forums of the two categories into one category, thus making the layout more condensed. This isn’t really a lot of changes, but it will make your layout substantially smaller and better organized if the staff forces can enforce it well. I think that your board is up to the challenge, I hope that you find my suggestions helpful. Good luck with your board!

Checklist:

• Maintitle doesn’t match
• Shades of green don’t match
• Team colors don’t match
• Reviews quality lacking
• Skin requests could be better
• Ads Team not active
• VIMs with low posts
• Community Team low posts
• Mixing skins
• Nothing original
• 64 members with 0 posts
• 170 posts today
• Combine graphics and skins categories