I just like to get feedback on the site from outside sources.

Name of Board: Sonic Cyclone
Link to Board: http://s15.zetaboards.com/Sonic_Cyclone
Short description of Board: Sonic Cyclone has been open for going on two years, but with this revamp we're actually trying to make it work. And it is. To our surprise people jumped right back in! We've got plots underway now and are actually finishing up our first board-wide arc now! We try to stray away from plots focused on actual game events, however, nestling the board in its own AU dimension just after the last game.
Analysis Notes: In general I would like some feedback on the layout, the rules, and the overall features of the board. Any comments and suggestions are welcome! Also, feel free to drop a few comments in the CBox!
Link to profile on the Board: Fission

Haven't reviewed in a while and know nothing about Sonic, so sorry if my review isn't totally amazing. But it's better than nothing, no?
Oh and I don't tend to compliment too much, so if I don't say much about something, that means it's super-awesome :D.


Organisation:

First...maybe some links to rules, etc. in the header box? You have links to advertising, registering, etc. (though those don't appear on all pages, but I've got no idea on how zetaboards works) but not the key threads, which I thought was odd. Would put those up there!
Ok, the forum wasn't hard to find. Odd seeing the thread tracker in with the rules though (and pinned!). It's not like something that guests really need to read, is it?
OH and I would add in the topic descriptions either 'Required Reading' or 'Not Required Reading' - I see you've done this for a couple of topics, would be nice to do it for everything.

Now, Rules! The Rules are generally good. You have spelt godmodding in I think every way possible though, stick to one spelling. I think with a double d in the 'modding' is correct, but just stick to it once throughout, as it's one of those things some people spell differently. Your first rule doesn't need the 'if you're not sociable don't roleplay' on it. You don't need to be sociable, you need to be respectful. Just say something like 'respect all members' instead. Sounds nicer :). I'd take out where you have things like 'ummmm' as it looks like...I can't think of the word, a bit unprofessional maybe? Oh and either have numbered bullet points or normal ones throughout, you've got numbered for the first few sections then switch to normal, which looks weird. In a bad way :p.
You say max 120x120 dimensions for an avatar, yet yours is larger. Something needs to change, as you really should be obeying your own rules. Things like that immediately turn a lot of people off sites.
Some of your sections have titles in all capitals and underlined, some don't. Consistency, please!

Character Guidelines are fine, pretty much. You might want to add something about no perfect characters, but that's up to you.

Plot! No recent areas of interest? Delete the section if there aren't any, as it makes the site look bad! Don't really get a lot of the plot stuff, but as I know nothing about Sonic or anything, I'm assuming that is to be expected.

Common Game Elemnents now. Fine until I get to ~Dr. Ivo 'Eggman' Robotnik~. History time, kiddies! <-- Potential members might not like being referred to as kiddies. Also, you have 'his ambitions have risen to the clichéd' in that section. What is that last word supposed to be? Because I have no idea.

Item Guide seems fine to me.


Appearance:

Generally, quite a good layout/design. Some people might think there is a bit too much blue, though, as in would prefer less saturated colours. I don't actually mind that much, but I know others would. Like make the forum background, posting background, etc. to a paler and less saturated colour would be a lot nicer :).

I really like the banner though. I have no idea what the forum markers are, but they fit in with the colours so they're ok :). Generally, graphics seem to be really good, so no need to comment on them :).

Right, your header. Is there any way to get it to appear on every page, I thought it was weird that it didn't. Your top one did, but not the other one. It's kinda like you have two headers on the forum index, is there anyway you can merge them or something? I don't know, it just seems weird. I'm not familiar with zetaboards at all, but still, not all of your potential members will be.

Oh and when you hover over someone's name on the 'who's online' bit at the bottom, their name goes to an illegible colour as it's almost the same as the background. This should be changed, methinks.


Layout:

So, IC areas first. Some of your forums have the dreaded zero posts in them. Chao Gardens and Cybera. Then the catagory Space has no posts at all! That probably shouldn't be it's own catagory, if it's only got one forum in it, and it doesn't have any posts in it either so I don't really see the point of it. At least hide these forums from people if you don't want to delete them, as it makes the board look empty.

You have nothing in your OoC RP Arena of Doom. I have no idea what it is. I think at least an info topic of what it is should be in there, as I'm quite curious now :p!

So just use/delete/hide the forums with zero posts in them. Or just make new threads in them! Either option works well :).


Staff:

Both admins have posted info threads, so that looks good. I can tell who the staff are, always a plus. I can't tell what they're doing, which is usually a good sign, so I'm going to say that they're doing well :).


General Feedback:

Err, I think I've covered pretty much everything. G'luck with your board, and reply here if you have any other questions on my review/about your board or feel free to PM me if you want.

Hope this has helped!

Awesome, finally got one.

Okay, some things:

There is really only one info box at the top, which appears on the front page. Since we cram a lot of info in there, my members and staff complained about there being too much between them and the forum content itself, so it ended up being on there. If you are referring to the guest box (that has an ad on the left side of it) that's part of Zetaboards and doesn't appear to members since it's only for guests.

On the "godmodding" comment: we differentiate between "godmod" and "godmode", where to godmod is to control other people's characters and to godmode is to make your character more powerful. I'll add something in there that godmode is also known as powergaming.

I didn't notice that my co-admin had such a large avatar. I've changed it to not be wider than 120 pixels.

As for the capitalization thing for dividers, the main sections (Sonic Cyclone Rules and Sonic Cyclone Roleplaying Rules) divide the IC and OoC rules, while the other ones are mere subsections. The main dividers also have larger font size.

There aren't many things of interest in the Plots and Macguffins thread because we're in a downtime between major plots.

The Common Game Elements and Item Database threads are currently just stand-ins until we get all that info up on the Wiki. Our staff team is lacking right now so we're sort of strapped for manpower.

I don't really like to have areas that people could access not available just because they don't have any posts in them. The forums cover pretty much the entire accessible world, and we have some areas that we don't have planned yet but that will inevitably be made.