Motoring Alliance

Forum URL: Motoring Alliance

Forum Name: Motoring Alliance

Launch Date: 5/4/09

Posts/Threads/Members: 3970 /478 /516

Forum Software: vBulletin 3.8.2

Description: The MINI Enthusiasts Home on the Web

Other Info/Points of Interest: WheelFinder Tool/Library

 

Nice forum you have there. I don't say this often, but..you have way to many forums for your site size. Try getting rid of some.

 

Looks very good to be from a visual standpoint. Nice layout.

I'm a motor enthusiast too, maybe motor people like a different cleaner style than other do. Your is very clean and easy on the eyes.


But I would consider at least collapsing all the car clubs in to one forum, then as that area grows separating them out. Or at least put them at the very bottom of your forum, it is a long way down to get to the last parts of your forum.

 

Nice looking forum you've got there; very clean-looking

 

I just wanted to bump this thread for Gnatster so FMB doesn't miss his review. :unhunh:

 

>< Oops!! I did miss it!! I will review tomorrow~ Lol, I was going to sleep.

 

No problem, FMB! I didn't expect you to review it immediately, obviously. Just wanted to bring it to the top of the list.

 

First Impression: Hmm... Looks... ok, I am not fond of the skin. Though I don't know what the site is about immediately, I know it's about cars though.

Forum content

Quantity of Forums: I must say it's quite a lot... I don't think that much is needed either... one forum for each event?? Some forums were never posted at and you have 500+ members...

Content: With so many forums I didn't know where to start, it kind of confused me, and I am a avid MINIcooper fan! I see that you give your users very useful information about the car, details, manual guide, and much more on how to take care of those babies. You guys are well informed and like for users to partake on contests, very proactive.

Forum Design

Favicon: I like the shield, but it doesn't tell me it was MINI related.

On, Off Icons: They look like you faved them as GIF with no matte, and made it look jagged. You can try to redo them using Shelly's tutorial, Photoshop - Save for web (.gif Graphics) | AdminAddict. Also, you still have the default on, off subforum icons... that doesn't look good.

Design: Not to be rude, but personally, I don't like the design. It does NOT scream Mini to me. Mini coopers are small, elegant and fast. Your site loaded slow for me, it also doesn't seem elegant. in my opinion. The combination of blue and black is a little too much. Maybe red white would suit better, like one of my favorite mini. I like the logo[apart from the background] I will give you that.
.

I also think that you could move away from the default icons that vB has, bringing more 'creativity' to the site and such. I see BEAUTIFUL things done with a site like this. Car sites are so delicious to design for.


Overall Opinion: Sorry if I offended you, but visually this site doesn't attract me, I love Mini's, but this site doesn't represent it visually. Maybe a change of skin and colors would be good. changing the icons so they don't look so jagged would look good also. Other than that, I think you're doing great content wise, keeping your users informed about the Mini's and helping the avid fans take care of their own. Good luck!

I hope this helped.
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Thanks!!

I'm not offended at all, I'd not ask if I didn't want to learn where I could be doing better.

From your comments I've gone and changed the main and footer titles to read "Motoring Alliance :: MINI Cooper Forums" That should help with some with the immediate indentification of the subject matter.

The skin is not for everyone, I've had more positive comments than negative. I like it, it suits my eye and it matches the color combo of my MINI. The lack of red is a very conscious choice. The two largest MINI forums both have quite a bit of red in their design. Being I was an admin for one of them and left after the corp takeover there is a desire to distance Motoring Alliance from them. I'd imagine there is a the question of why is there MINI in the forum name. MINI USA is very aggressive in going after any internet properties with MINI in the name. In the rest of the world the brand is no where near as aggressive.

Content wise there are a lot of forums since MINI owners like to be unique. Generation 1 people don't want to lumped with Generation 2. It goes deeper. Cooper owners don't want to be lumped with Cooper S owners. I've been down this road before so in order to appease the masses there are lot of forums. It's filling in nicely as the site grows. I will be pulling the club forums for the continents not yet represented. It's very ease to add them back in as needed.

I know the graphics need some help. I'm a writer so I tend to focus on the content. The people that were helping me out with the graphics have proved to be less than reliable. Even after pointing them to the tutorial mentioned above they still did nothing. With a looming deadline to get the site up and running I had to cut and run with what I have. Not exactly what I wanted to do. Once the budget allows I'll be looking to fix the graphics issues.

Thanks again for the review. I'll be looking to work in some of the suggestions.

 

Yes, I thought of that, [forum wise] I imagines that you had so much forum because of the different styles of coopers.

^__^ I'm glad that I helped!