Please review Offwalk the off topic forum

[BlueCheri]

Hello Friends,

Kindly review The Offwalk - Off topic forum.

The link is www.offwalk.com

Youtube link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPEVFaKYhrI

Thanx in advance.

G!

[RobbieZ]

I'm using a laptop to review your site.

On initial load the facebook/twitter/RSS icons overlap your navbar.

Usual blue-ish color theme used, nice layout easy on the eye.

Nice to see the use of a notice to explain what your site is and does.

Title is OFFWALK Off Topic forum.

Consistency

Your notice has the word 'Offtopic' all one word in it also at the bottom of your forum. The About OW link now shows two different images which leads to confusion, further into your thread you start using OffWaLK and then change throughout to offwalk, upper and lower case letters, you need to stick to one only.

Imagery BR used is an Anim? character which seems totally out of place.

Forumhome contains a forum title called 'Global Forum' that seems out of place, underneath this you then list 'Cafe` Offwalk!' if this is supposed to french orientated use of the word cafe then use it correctly 'Caf?'.

Contact Us leads to a 'You must accept the Forum Rules below' , after inspecting these you list For breaking above rules you may be warned/banned appropriately! The only use of the asterisk is actually in that sentence.

After clicking accept which is hard to submit because of said Anim? character it then takes you to the registration page, I'm trying to contact you not register.

I think navtab 'Advt' needs to be the word 'Advertise' and what is navtab OW Q-L? the popup menu displayed is inconsistent again with the use of the word offwalk with multiple lower and upper case letters.

Check this posts signature: http://www.offwalk.com/threads/5011-Why-you-should-join-Offwalk-offtopic-chat-forum?p=47379#post47379 nearly 10 months and no one has spotted this being a mess?

Hope you do well :)

[BlueCheri]

Excellent, and thanx a lot for detailed and micro reviewed.

We will try to fix the suggested changes.

Edit: All most every suggested changes done. Remaining one or two will fix in a day or two.

More Reviews please.

Thanx and rgds,

G!

I'm using a laptop to review your site.

On initial load the facebook/twitter/RSS icons overlap your navbar.

Usual blue-ish color theme used, nice layout easy on the eye.

Nice to see the use of a notice to explain what your site is and does.

Title is OFFWALK Off Topic forum.

Consistency

Your notice has the word 'Offtopic' all one word in it also at the bottom of your forum. The About OW link now shows two different images which leads to confusion, further into your thread you start using OffWaLK and then change throughout to offwalk, upper and lower case letters, you need to stick to one only.

Imagery BR used is an Anim? character which seems totally out of place.

Forumhome contains a forum title called 'Global Forum' that seems out of place, underneath this you then list 'Cafe` Offwalk!' if this is supposed to french orientated use of the word cafe then use it correctly 'Caf?'.

Contact Us leads to a 'You must accept the Forum Rules below' , after inspecting these you list For breaking above rules you may be warned/banned appropriately! The only use of the asterisk is actually in that sentence.

After clicking accept which is hard to submit because of said Anim? character it then takes you to the registration page, I'm trying to contact you not register.

I think navtab 'Advt' needs to be the word 'Advertise' and what is navtab OW Q-L? the popup menu displayed is inconsistent again with the use of the word offwalk with multiple lower and upper case letters.

Check this posts signature: http://www.offwalk.com/threads/5011-Why-you-should-join-Offwalk-offtopic-chat-forum?p=47379#post47379 nearly 10 months and no one has spotted this being a mess?

Hope you do well :)

[Sage Knight]

The forum atm, is looking good in terms of activity.

Like mentioned above, change the anime character with some thing smaller and more appealing, perhaps with Homer Simpson? ;P

I'd also remove the welcome message in the sidebar, you already have one in the notice, [which should also be shortened and formatted better as nobody really likes to reads walls of text] And also remove the Traffic Stats at the bottom, I doubt an average member would really care about your Alexa rank ;3

Why not also add forum icons for each section? And go for the legacy postbit style?

[BlueCheri]

Many thanx friend for your views and comments.

- I also feel it should be small, I will try to get it don.
- The welcome message I think may be useful for search engine point of view (not sure may take expert opinion on this.
- Mostly having Alexa ranking bar is important for the ranking point of view
- I am not good technically, so difficult for me to have forums icons for each section, you are right it will look nice.
- Some settings are with postbit, may not be able to set 'Legacy Postbit' let me try it again.

Rgds,

G!


The forum atm, is looking good in terms of activity.

Like mentioned above, change the anime character with some thing smaller and more appealing, perhaps with Homer Simpson? ;P

I'd also remove the welcome message in the sidebar, you already have one in the notice, [which should also be shortened and formatted better as nobody really likes to reads walls of text] And also remove the Traffic Stats at the bottom, I doubt an average member would really care about your Alexa rank ;3

Why not also add forum icons for each section? And go for the legacy postbit style?

[prandah]

looks nice
and simple, i like it.
but have 2 search ? for what ?
why not just 1 column for search and can be change with member

[BlueCheri]

Thanx for your review.

One is search is for forum (posts, threads etc)

Other is affiliated links.

G!

looks nice
and simple, i like it.
but have 2 search ? for what ?
why not just 1 column for search and can be change with member

[NOCTURNES]

Hello, I really like the image to the bottom right saying "Hi there, seems like you are not a member yet.." etc I think that is very original, at least I have not seen it anywhere else.

Now what I dont like personally is the background colors. Maybe customize the back ground so that its not gray? The whole page is too gray for my taste.

[BlueCheri]

Many thanx for your views and comments.

G!

Hello, I really like the image to the bottom right saying "Hi there, seems like you are not a member yet.." etc I think that is very original, at least I have not seen it anywhere else.

Now what I dont like personally is the background colors. Maybe customize the back ground so that its not gray? The whole page is too gray for my taste.

[Max Taxable]

107 requests, 11.493 seconds load time on the Patrick Meehan Google web page test:

http://www.webpagetest.org/result/120216_YN_38REP/

Two 500 errors and a 403 as well.

For reference, native vBulletin loads much faster and has only 55 or so requests, with no errors.. At the Meehan site there's many tips and tricks on how to improve, and you can run the test yourself as many times as you want, from different locations and also different browsers.

For mobile devices, this page is a disaster. Over 9 seconds load time and over 900kb of data. I think you want to find a slick, slithery mobile style and get automatic mobile style assignment enabled, or get vBulletin's mobile suite. Here's the test results on a i-Phone out of Ottawa:

http://www.blaze.io/mobile/result/?testid=120216_0E_A4W&src=wpt

In the screengrab below you can see that on my Firefox 10 browser, there's some add-on image conflicts in your navbar and in some other places:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/external/2012/02/19.jpg

Here's the complete waterfall view of your page on the web from Meehan:

http://www.webpagetest.org/result/120216_YN_38REP/1/details/

General Impressions:
The color scheme and the header logo look nice. It's generally a nice impression, but the chatbox and all the text at the top make it look a bit chaotic and muddy. I concur with others, the sidebar needs attention. I would get rid of the top two elements completely, and move the third one below the fold, opting instead for latest posts and latest threads as the top elements in the sidebar.

Overall, nice board.

--------------- Added 1329411935 at 1329411935 ---------------

Like mentioned above, change the anime character with some thing smaller and more appealing, perhaps with Homer Simpson? ;PMine is Beavis and Butthead!

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/external/2012/02/28.png

[BlueCheri]

Man, what a details reviews.

Thanx for showing problems and solutions for them also (believe me I could never do that)

I will try to fix all most everything suggested by you.

You have very good knowledge buddy, many thanx friend.

G!

107 requests, 11.493 seconds load time on the Patrick Meehan Google web page test:

http://www.webpagetest.org/result/120216_YN_38REP/

Two 500 errors and a 403 as well.

For reference, native vBulletin loads much faster and has only 55 or so requests, with no errors.. At the Meehan site there's many tips and tricks on how to improve, and you can run the test yourself as many times as you want, from different locations and also different browsers.

For mobile devices, this page is a disaster. Over 9 seconds load time and over 900kb of data. I think you want to find a slick, slithery mobile style and get automatic mobile style assignment enabled, or get vBulletin's mobile suite. Here's the test results on a i-Phone out of Ottawa:

http://www.blaze.io/mobile/result/?testid=120216_0E_A4W&src=wpt

In the screengrab below you can see that on my Firefox 10 browser, there's some add-on image conflicts in your navbar and in some other places:

http://usmessageboards.com/myimagehost/?di=Y73M

Here's the complete waterfall view of your page on the web from Meehan:

http://www.webpagetest.org/result/120216_YN_38REP/1/details/

General Impressions:
The color scheme and the header logo look nice. It's generally a nice impression, but the chatbox and all the text at the top make it look a bit chaotic and muddy. I concur with others, the sidebar needs attention. I would get rid of the top two elements completely, and move the third one below the fold, opting instead for latest posts and latest threads as the top elements in the sidebar.

Overall, nice board.

--------------- Added 1329411935 at 1329411935 ---------------

Mine is Beavis and Butthead!

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/external/2012/02/28.png

[setishock]

I got your PM several days ago. And I've been snowed under at my place try to chase down a sot that's running a scrapper program on my gallery. I really have my knickers in a twist right now so if I offend you sorry about that. Ok so let's get started.
Behind the scenes:
I looked just a couple of minutes ago and you have 79 of those Baidu bots walking all over your forum. You do know they burn up your bandwidth? Once they get settled in they will stay there eating bandwidth until you put your foot in their tails and boot them out the door. If you're running cpanel go in to the IP blocker and enter Baidu then save it. Any critter with Baidu in the user agent string will not be able to get in your forum let alone "see" it. Ain't 404 errors wonderful?
In the public eye:
Dump the chatbox. People would rather post in that than the forums. If it's open to the public for posting it will become a spamming nightmare. Make it members only after posting X amount of posts in a given period if you're gonna keep it.
And what's up with the bloat in the What's Going On box? Do you really need all that? You're just wasting cpu time that could be best used elsewhere.
And the top 10 stats, who cares? It's a waste.
Sidebar:
The top block the text is too small. making it bold would help.
The next block down to me personally is a bit of a waste. If you keep it bold the text to make it easier to read.
Overall:
That sort of site is not my forte'. Anything goes has a tendency to go cold and on down the drain. I haven't seen too many that lasted very long. Good luck with it though.

[BlueCheri]

Many thanx for useful suggestion.

G!

I got your PM several days ago. And I've been snowed under at my place try to chase down a sot that's running a scrapper program on my gallery. I really have my knickers in a twist right now so if I offend you sorry about that. Ok so let's get started.
Behind the scenes:
I looked just a couple of minutes ago and you have 79 of those Baidu bots walking all over your forum. You do know they burn up your bandwidth? Once they get settled in they will stay there eating bandwidth until you put your foot in their tails and boot them out the door. If you're running cpanel go in to the IP blocker and enter Baidu then save it. Any critter with Baidu in the user agent string will not be able to get in your forum let alone "see" it. Ain't 404 errors wonderful?
In the public eye:
Dump the chatbox. People would rather post in that than the forums. If it's open to the public for posting it will become a spamming nightmare. Make it members only after posting X amount of posts in a given period if you're gonna keep it.
And what's up with the bloat in the What's Going On box? Do you really need all that? You're just wasting cpu time that could be best used elsewhere.
And the top 10 stats, who cares? It's a waste.
Sidebar:
The top block the text is too small. making it bold would help.
The next block down to me personally is a bit of a waste. If you keep it bold the text to make it easier to read.
Overall:
That sort of site is not my forte'. Anything goes has a tendency to go cold and on down the drain. I haven't seen too many that lasted very long. Good luck with it though.

[Max Taxable]

I looked just a couple of minutes ago and you have 79 of those Baidu bots walking all over your forum. You do know they burn up your bandwidth? Once they get settled in they will stay there eating bandwidth until you put your foot in their tails and boot them out the door. If you're running cpanel go in to the IP blocker and enter Baidu then save it. Any critter with Baidu in the user agent string will not be able to get in your forum let alone "see" it. Ain't 404 errors wonderful?What setishock says here is very important. Baidu is the most aggressive and useless bot out there. It does a forum no good at all to have them - what, do we think people in China are going to be searching us up? They do not obey robots.txt at all and they are essentially leeches. Blocking them is a must.

[BlueCheri]

Luckily I could find the modification for it and it's done.

Thanx you both friends, for your help and support.

Edit: Sharing link, if any one is interested for it (Ban Spiders by User Agent)

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=268208

G!

What setishock says here is very important. Baidu is the most aggressive and useless bot out there. It does a forum no good at all to have them - what, do we think people in China are going to be searching us up? They do not obey robots.txt at all and they are essentially leeches. Blocking them is a must.

[BlueCheri]

Done many changes.

More reviews please.

G!

[setishock]

I don't see anything different other than the facebook block in the sidebar. Speaking of sidebar...
You have the same video in the sidebar and the news block at the top of the forum index. It's a little redundant. Besides chewing up bandwidth.

[BlueCheri]

The sidebar video was put for test, will change it.

Thanx for your views and comments.

Notes: Forum Icons added

G!

I don't see anything different other than the facebook block in the sidebar. Speaking of sidebar...
You have the same video in the sidebar and the news block at the top of the forum index. It's a little redundant. Besides chewing up bandwidth.

[BlueCheri]

Made few more changes and also optimized the site.

Please check now.

G!

[Max Taxable]

MUCH better!

[setishock]

Yep... Much better.

[BlueCheri]

Thanx for checking it.

G!

Made few more changes and also optimized the site.

Please check now.

G!

MUCH better!