My Competitive Swimming Forum

Hey guys, I recently made a forum called Swim Forums - Swim Forums - Swimming Discussion Forum and Community

It's for competitive swimmers from around the world to discuss and share different techniques and help each other out to improve their performance in meets and competitions. Hopefully, everybody who joins and posts a little on Swim Forums will learn something new that they can use in the water.

And for those of you who aren't competitive swimmers, we still have a Recreational Swimming forum just for you! Discuss different water games and non-intense swimming. Swimming is in fact the best sport for you!

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I have added lots of mods such as an Invite system, Thanks system, and added functionality to make the user experience more pleasant (Latest threads on Index, Your Latest threads in User CP). I also plan on adding an awards system soon.

Skin made custom just for Swim Forums and it uses lots of CSS3.

 

Style: I love it, its actually borderline stupendous! I think it conveys your message and targets your niche great. Though the status icons can be greatly improved. The sidebar on forum home is great as well.

I suggest removing the "Invite" link from the top for guests.

So after the thanks mod, and latest threads on the forum home, what else have you done to attract new members?

During my time on your site, a direct competitors add was shown. The site was "swim.com" I suggest blocking them from your adsense.

Other than your outstanding skin, i really can't find much to review or rant/rave about. Needs perhaps a custom welcome message for guests. Maybe a database of swim meets. A way for users to track their times.

You've got a great skin, hopefully you can build upon that and get some features added to it!

 

Thanks for the great review Took me a while to make the skin, wanted it to be perfect

I will remove the Invite link for guest - that's a good idea. And I probably should add a 'Welcome' box for members, similar to vBulletin's.

Regarding adding a database or something, that's an interesting idea. Since I can't really make anything automated (not nearly knowledgeable enough), maybe I could add a table with World Records that I update once a month or something that I just pull off of Wikipedia. I could probably add it under some 'Swimmer Resources' tab or something.

 

Not officially part of the review folks but....

And I didn't look for this

Offering members a place for them to track their times so they can see improvement would be a unique feature and keep them coming back.

If the desired the member could share or hide the data.

 

Currently there is a tool for that on the official USA Swimming website, but that's only for USA Swimming registered members - and I couldn't embed that onto my site

By the way, I just added a guest welcome message: Swim Forums - Swimming Discussion Forum and Community

(I will edit the color of the ads as soon as I confirm whether to not to keep the visitor message)

 

I have redesigned the header, and will probably be redesigning the footer and more over time. In case you are interested, here is what the old and new header look like:

Old Header: http://www.swimforums.net/oldsite.png

New Header: http://www.swimforums.net/newsite.png

Feedback, criticism, advice?

 

I like the new one better. You could make some of those links menus if you needed more up there, the mouse over effect is very nice though. As for appearance you could include the icons you had from the first design. Although it already looks good IMO, it might make it stand out a bit more with the icons.

 

I was thinking about it Tex, not sure though.

Hmm, I have a question about the logo: Do you think it would look better if I stuck the man in between Swim Forums and the user info?

 

Actually I like it better between. Granted I haven't seen it the way you're suggesting. Make the change and upload it here and I'll confirm my opinion for you, but from my best guess at what I'm seeing now I like it how it is. Good job!