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I wanna forum of my own!

Badly Shaved Monkey

Anti-homeopathy illuminati member
Badly Shaved Monkey
Joined
Feb 5, 2004
Messages
5,363
A group that I have joined would like to set up a discussion forum just like his one, but I know nothing at all about the underlying mechanics.

1. Is the software a package one simply buys or acquires for free?

2. Does it require significant computer savvy to run it? The intermittent technical glitches that strike this forum suggest to me that some expertise is required, or is that because this forum is huge and if I just have a few dozen members then it is easy?
 
At the bottom of this very page:

Powered by vBulletin

Software running on a server. The biggest tech problems come when you try and make it do fancy stuff different from how it runs' out of the box'.

compare and contrast with

phpBB (free)
 
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Interesting. So for less than $20 a month, I can have THEM host a forum for me?

Have to think about this.

Beanbag
 
Badly Shaved Monkey said:
Thanks.

Requiring signifcant expertise or can a monkey cope?
Click to expand...

No if out of the box is OK. Yes if you wish to apply mods.

For full control, you need yo have a dedicated server. i.e. a server which belongs to you which you pay a hosting facility to have on their premises and you do it all yourself. This is not cheap.

At the other end of the scale are shared services. These will provide typically Plesk control of your site for not very much and is easy to operate as a layman.

It really depends what you want.
 
We'd need it to be a members-only forum. Certainly for posting. Whether we'd want to make its content closed is another decision.
 
Badly Shaved Monkey said:
We'd need it to be a members-only forum. Certainly for posting. Whether we'd want to make its content closed is another decision.
Click to expand...
There are a ton of configuration options for most BBs, and I second the recommendation for mybb, which is a free clone of vBulletin. You can open it up or tighten control as you wish. Your biggest problem may be wading through the initial setup options, but you can learn as you go along.

Sounds like you will have a pretty small board. Probably no need for a dedicated server, just use a shared hosting package. I have had good luck with GoDaddy in many ways. About $120 per year for a no-frills package even with unlimited email storage.

One word of caution...if you restrict membership too much, the board will never reach critical mass, and die a-borning. If not enough people actively participate, and nothing seems to be going on, people forget about it and the more that happens, the more it snowballs into nothing.

Also, be prepared to spend a considerable amount of time administering the board. If you enjoy it, no problem, but the work can pile up.
 
IMO, phpBB is by far the easiest to learn to use. I was able to teach myself how to do some fairly clever stuff with it with ZERO previous experience with either websites or forums.

Of course the penalty is that it is not as configurable as vBulletin, but vBulletin is a lot more complicated.
 
Oh, I've just downloaded the software from myBB and phpBB.

My world is Mac not Wintel. That's OKAY, because myBB talks about *nix.

But we're straightaway into line commands and other stuff that is not monkey-friendly.
 
Badly Shaved Monkey said:
Oh, I've just downloaded the software from myBB and phpBB.

My world is Mac not Wintel. That's OKAY, because myBB talks about *nix.

But we're straightaway into line commands and other stuff that is not monkey-friendly.
Click to expand...

You don't need to download it (although you can) you simply need to rent it someplace where they do the donkey work and you operate the forum.

About 5 or 6 bucks a month.

Some random suggestions. https://www.phpbb.com/hosting/
 
OK.

Take me in baby steps, please.

I need a hosting service because they hold the software and data for whatever BB system I choose.

If I sign up with a host does it then become immediately apparent how to initiate the process of creating a Board in that host?
 
I created one years back for my in-laws. Got a package with 1&1 which included mySQL (to hold the data) and php (which a few BB packages are written in). The instructions to install and configure phpBB were very clear but I've been a programmer since '84.
 
Badly Shaved Monkey said:
OK.

Take me in baby steps, please.

I need a hosting service because they hold the software and data for whatever BB system I choose.

If I sign up with a host does it then become immediately apparent how to initiate the process of creating a Board in that host?
Click to expand...


The easiest way is to sign up with a specialized forum host. If it's only for you and a couple of dozen friends it should have everything you need and more. MikeG above suggested ProBoards, which looks good indeed.
 
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