Starting a Forum

[hugegrowth]

Any advice on starting a forum site would be appreciated - starting with finding a pre-made template or script - I'm not an advanced programmer, so it needs to be easy to set up. Thanks!

 

[droplister]

Im just starting one myself. I started small. I made 5 categories. One was introductions so people have something to post even with the little that exists atm, and a news section, because I can keep adding news just to keep it not dead. I got into the search engines for "keyword forum" so thats helping. I chose not to show any ads on the forum, dont want to scare anyone away. I made the register button bold outlined so you cant miss it, and the registration has been shortened to just name, password, email to get them in quick. It's work so far. Slowly growing. Good luck. Hope this helps a bit.


oh and I made it so guests cant see the "who's online" and dont link to the memberslist.

 

[hunnam]

My forum has been up and running for a while and I used SMF 1.1 as it has quite a few addons etc and quite easy to install.

I had a few people join up that I knew at first and would post on average 5 new threads per day and I would post an extreme view so that people would either strongly agree or strongly disagree like Nuclear power v Renewable energy.

Before my lunatic hosting provider decided to delete my site I had a good few hundred new threads per week with 3 - 4 signups per week.

Try not to do too many categories as that makes the site look empty, Im getting rid of a few on my site because it looks dead when the last post was a month ago etc.

Good luck btw.

 

[andrejc]

I suggest you to use SMF as board script

 

[hugegrowth]

droplister - how did you build your forum?

 

[furca]

Hey,

2 years ago I started a site for a game and now it's one of the most popular forums for that game. I went all out and started with a vBulletin so members would know it was there to stay - and professional. Now its up to 60+ members on consecutively.

Forums are a hit-and-miss.. I think. I tried to start another one end of last year and it's not doing so well.


LINK: http://www.vbulletin.com

 

[droplister]

Im still using phpbb, I like it, but down the road I'll probably hate it.

 

[Shaggy]

phpbb is easily hackable. VB is the best forum software out there.

I have 7 forums, 1 with 3million+ posts, and several with over 100,000 posts. Just make the forums interesting, fun, and have something on it that makes users want to come back to each day.

 

[hugegrowth]

Thanks for all the comments, I'm leaning towards vbulletin, I like the look of it and am familiar with it from being here at dnforum.

Once the forum is up and running, how much time is spent on maintaining it, finding moderators, etc. if the forum gets somewhat popular? Does it require time every day or two, or more?

 

[GT Web]

MyBB is the best free forum script out there.

But VB is king if you're going to spend some money on it.

 

[rusty123]

I'd recommend Vbulletin as well, its easy to set up and use. There is a guy on dnforum that will set up vbulletin plus any hacks, and mods for free if you dont feel comfortable installing it yourself.

 

[Raider]

Are you guys getting vB direct off your server or elsewhere?

 

[KING]

Yeah more info in this one would be great I am putting down strategy for my GamersForum.com I wanna have a good plan and set it up very nice before I make it live. Its a solid domain so I hope it does well. Not meaning to steal the post here but I am in a need of the same info my self.

Cheers

 

[Avensen]

Some technical tips from me:

1. Buy vBulletin. I was surprised by quality and features of this software. Have tried SMF and MyBB -- they are not even close to vBulletin.
2. Get a dedicated (or at least, good VPS) hosting.
3. Use a catchy domain with target keywords (subject of your forum and 'forum' or 'forums').
4. Don't forget to back it up.

 

[hunnam]

Yes backing up your forum is essential believe me, I lost out on a good few months worth of posts because I forgot to backup.

 

[furca]

Are you guys getting vB direct off your server or elsewhere?

You have to buy it through http://www.vBulletin.com

 

[droplister]

I just tossed up phpbb as a test, and now Ive got it where I like it, but I suppose its better to change it over early rather than later. VB was confusing for me last time I used it which was a year ago. I just like how the folders are organized in PHPBB. ie: wanna mess with the footer, footer.tpl, etc.

 

[whydna]

VBulletin is the only way to go IMO. It is great software with good security, and there is a large community dedicated to software modifications and addons. The support is also very good.

 

[droplister]

I just bought a new license for vb, i sold my last one. Hope the converter works decent.

 

[IIM8]

free forum try '"orca" http://boonex.com.

It is no VB but I am going to give it a try for a specific niche that suits the software format, self administrating for users and no technical backend, depends on your purpose down the track.

Worth a look.