Please review my Hunger Games forum.

[Jerlene]

If you're a fan of the Hunger Games come join The Mockingjays! The Mockingjays is a forum community for Hunger Games fans to unite and discuss the Hunger Games book, movies, cast and news. Join the Seam today!

http://themockingjays.com/

Also looking for critiques on the design. Thanks.

 

[Sam1]

I haven't read the books and have only seen the first film. I don't think I'm the target audience anyway.

Here are a few things I noticed:

~ The forum has a heap of posts in the general discussion area. I am guessing that's because you merged posts from your previous forum into this new one. Just be careful. Increasing on-topic discussion should be a big priority for you.
~ I think the header banner should fit the width of the board.
~ If you look (here) you can see 6 spam topics with the locked symbol on them. When you click them it says: "The specified thread does not exist." You may want to try repairing the database.
~ I don't really know what the "new-post" "no-new-post" icons are. I assume they are specific to The Hunger Games. Regardless- brighter icons would stand out a lot better on such a dark forum.
~ A number of boards haven't had posts in them for days. One of your aims should be to ensure all boards are updated regularly.

Good luck with the forum!

 

[Jerlene]

It is a merged forum. When I created this new forum I just brought my old forum into it.
In regards to your third point, with MyBB, if you come across a post that says "Last Post:" as opposed to "Last Post: username" that thread is no longer in the database so it can only be buried not moved, deleted, etc.
lol The icons are all specific to the Hunger Games. You'd have to be a fan to understand them. I agree about brighter icons though.
I am working on keeping activity flowing but fans are hard to find and I personally have a real life job that will always be my priority.

Thank you for your input. I appreciate it a lot! I will definitely be working on the forum more with those points in mind.

 

[Rihtar]

Sam pointed out most of the flaws that the content has, but I also think that your forum's appearance should be addressed a bit more.

1. I would suggest that you change the background image to something that is of higher quality unless the image is using a special style and is intentionally stretched.

2. Forum status icons could be of higher quality and like Sam mentioned, brighter.

3. "tcat" could be hidden on the index considering that it uses the same background image as the "thead" which in itself looks really goofy.

Overall to me the forum's design seems to be really rushed just to provide the forum with a custom design and if I'd be interested in Hunger Games I wouldn't join your forum, because of that.

 

[Jerlene]

Thanks for the suggestions. I will take it into consideration when I update the design.

 

[Jordan]

I haven't read the books and have only seen the first film. I don't think I'm the target audience anyway.

I never read the books until this passing summer. I actually never even heard of them until everyone was going nuts for this highly hyped up movie that was coming out. With that said, when I finally watched the movie I was a little disappointed. Although, I actually had no idea what it was all about, I still had higher hopes for it because of all the hype and attention it got.

This past summer when I moved over to Prince Edward Island for a couple months, I decided I would pick up some books to read. So I got the entire Hunger Games trilogy and read them. Wow. What an exiting series. The book was so much better then the movie. I suppose that's how it always is though. I was not able to put them down once I started reading them. I am now looking forward to seeing the second movie.

Overall to me the forum's design seems to be really rushed just to provide the forum with a custom design and if I'd be interested in Hunger Games I wouldn't join your forum, because of that.

Don't always forget though the forum design and software don't always make the forum. There are a lot, in fact I would say most of the internet's biggest forums still has the most basic 90's styled theme.

Nonetheless, I still agree a little bit of work can be done to it however, I will wtill be looking forward to see how this community achieves success

 

[Rihtar]

Don't always forget though the forum design and software don't always make the forum. There are a lot, in fact I would say most of the internet's biggest forums still has the most basic 90's styled theme.

That's true, but most of those forums didn't downgrade from 21st century's theme to a 90's styled one like this forum has. As always, this is just my personal opinion and shouldn't be taken as obsolete truth unless you take my username seriously

 

[Jerlene]

How is this a 90's style? Because I've compressed the background image by 84% and went from using 300 colours in it to 4? It's relevant to the stories.

 

[Jordan]

How is this a 90's style? Because I've compressed the background image by 84% and went from using 300 colours in it to 4? It's relevant to the stories.

Oh sorry I was not saying Yours is 90's I was just defending you saying some of the internet's biggest forums are still on 90's styled themes so in theory, the theme does not make the forum popular or not.

Although, to defend Kami at the same time, Forums that do have eye candy do seem to be a hit for users.

 

[Jerlene]

My reply was in response to Kami, but I get that it's all about aesthetics. Just updated the background and a couple icons.

 

[Beverly]

I really like your forum. And, I said that before elsewhere. I don't have any critique on the design or suggestions as to what to do about that. I still want to get around to reading the books, when I find time as they are getting such a better review than the movies. And, I like the volume of new discussions you have on the subforums about the Hunger Games movies/books.

However, I noticed that many of the discussions in those subforums have zero or few responses. On one hand, it's good that you have so many new discussions. But, then again, it might also put someone off from joining with the lack of new responses or any responses on so many of the threads. And, I don't know how to fix that, if you are still searching for new members. You might recruit some friends to come by and post only responses, if they are fans of the books/movies. Or, maybe post swaps. Someone else on this forum suggested that to me as an option. And, I've used it before for my own forum and it usually works. Though as I mentioned on another post, it can be tricky to use forum post swaps on a niche forum as you'll get lots of content in the general chat area, rather than the places where you need it most.

 

[Jerlene]

Yes, I am working on getting some responses to those empty threads. Thanks for the feedback.