Setting up a small forum - software, costs etc.

[Mechta]

I've been thinking of setting up an internet forum for the people living in our estate, but have no idea of the set up/running costs (if any), good templates to use, etc.

I would estimate up to about 500 users (not all at once).

Has anyone any experience of:


good forum templates to use
cost of set up, running costs etc. (I'm assuming that I will do most of the typing stuff in boxes)
setting up a forum restricted to a certain group of people (e.g. club members) does this make it much more expensive?
targetted advertising - is this appropriate to a small forum to cover running costs or would it be better just to pay a regular fee?
choosing and managing moderators - is this a minefield?
what legal liability might the forum initiator be accountable for?

[Milo Minderbinder]

start here phpBB • Free and Open Source Forum Software (http://www.phpbb.com/)

thats the software used on this (and many other) forums
Its free
You just need to learn to use it, and then decide where to host it
You'll probably find a local internet service company is going to be able to do you a deal on registering a domain, and getting a rent on a virtual server somewhere. Don't try hosting it yourself - your broadband connection won't cope

[Bushfiva]

software used on this

This site uses IB's own product, vBulletin.

[pudoc]

I've ran numerous forums, the software pprune use is fairly pricey considering. The forum software Milo posted is fantastic, you can find plenty of skins on the internet and customise a banner (or ask somebody nicely to do it for you). It has everything you need like restricting access to certain people and you can add Google ads if you want a bit of advertising.

As for web hosting, it's fairly cheap. Some charge a quid a month, my experience is they work but it tends to be teenagers running it from their bedroom. Someone like 123-reg are great, been with them for many years. I'd say their basic hosting will be fine for you, you can always upgrade. Most web hosting will include the forum posted above in their hosting with an installer, much easier than uploading it yourself.

Choosing moderators was fine, I either chose people I knew and trusted or I kept an eye out for sensible posters. Never seemed to go wrong, especially with smaller community forums.

No idea about legality, never seemed to come up. Not sure what you could be held legal for unless you're forum broke the law or promoted law braking. You're users agree to terms and conditions, you could make a thread listing some general rules and ban members as necessary. I wouldn't worry about legality on a small forum tbh, you're fine.

If you're a novice with running forums or websites it can seem a bit tricky at first and you'll get lost in the forum's control panel a few times but it's easy when you know how. But if you struggle with anything, you will always find a tutorial on YouTube or Google.

[Milo Minderbinder]

Bushfiva's right - this site doesn't use that software (my mistake), but a lot do.

Here's an example of one that does, Free PC Help Forum | Online PC Support Forums | Computer Technical Assistance (http://forum.technical-assistance.co.uk/)

[mixture]

I wouldn't worry about legality on a small forum tbh, you're fine.

No, no, no and no. Legal issues have a habit of cropping up when you least expect them.

If you are going to run a forum, its in your best interests to ensure you know your rights and responsibilities.

[mixture]

but have no idea of the set up/running costs (if any), good templates to use, etc.

Most of the suggestions made so far are references to software that you need some IT skills to implement (e.g. database backend etc).

If you really have two left hands when it comes to IT, then you are better off finding an off-the-shelf hosted platform that you can just point your domain to. You can then leave the boring, but important stuff like backups and software updates to someone else.

[BOAC]

I'll second phpBB software, but as said it does require a bit of 'fiddling' with databases etc - not too difficult, but maybe a Wordpress site or a simple dedicated ********* page would do and be a lot easier to set up and run?

[green granite]

Mechta, Pm Timmcat (he inhabits TTRABB in jetblast), he set up a forum using free software and hosting that had several hundred members. It is hosted by Free Forum Hosting - InvisionFree (http://www.invisionfree.com/)

[Genghis the Engineer]

You could use a free service such as YahooGroups, which I use for several communities of various sizes, and is fairly powerful and user friendly.

G

[Mechta]

Thank you to everyone who has replied so far. There are far more replies and useful, detailed information that I could have hoped for.

I'm familiar with Yahoogroups and F*c*b**k; Neither offer what I am thinking of though, as I would like it to offer a number of different sub-fora, much the same as Pprune does.

Mrs Mechta is pretty good with software, programming and so on, so I'll delegate all the clever stuff that has been mentioned to her if she can be persuaded.

Milo Mindbender wrote:

but once set up it very much looks after itself.

I just hope that's the case as I really don't want a full-time unpaid job!

[Milo Minderbinder]

you just have to keep a close rein on the linkspammers and similar pains.

Thats one of the biggest problems for that forum I linked to earlier. Too many Indian "web site optimisers" trying to get their spam links into the forum

[probes]

Don't know about 500 users, but with around 100 I used just the simple blog-format (bl0gspot, started years ago). First got gmail addresses from expected participants, which was 'kinda complicated', then made a 'collective gmail' with shared password & email (and the ones who wanted to were invited as authors, and access limited to 'authors only'). People post and comment willingly. With tags and links it's easy to manage - for someone not ready to get into software intricacies :\.

[peterh337]

One issue with off the shelf forum software seems to be that it is constantly getting hacked.

P p r u n e is about the only forum which I use (of several, mostly non aviation related) and which has not been hacked (recently). A lot of it is trojan infections which tend to get picked up by my AV (Kaspersky) but which are obviously infecting loads of user PCs. The forum admins are reluctant to advertise this after the fact, too.

If I was running a private forum I would have it behind a login, implemented with htaccess. A very simple solution...

As regards speed, for about 45 quid / month you can get 8M down and 800k up "business" ADSL (from e.g. ZEN) which is probably easily fast enough for a light use forum. Especially if you correctly enable server compression and browser caching of everything possible.

[Coffin Dodger]

For sidestepping most of the tech headaches, this seems to work for a lot of people... Goggle for 'Free Forums for you' ... and it's been around a while.

(I have no connection whatsoever btw - hope I haven't just breached Pprune's rules on advertising)

[mixture]

(I have no connection whatsoever btw - hope I haven't just breached PPRuNe's rules on advertising)

The general rule of thumb is that if you have no affiliation and you have not embedded an affiliate/referral code in your link, then you should be ok.

But who knows, the mods moods change like the wind..... so what's ok one day may be verboten the next. :cool:

[onetrack]

Mr Minderbender has nailed your biggest headache. Spammers, spammers and yet more spammers.
On another forum I moderate, the spammers never let up, and often launch massive attacks one after another. China is a large source of spammers.

You need to have a registration process that weeds the spammers out, because easy registration is exactly what the spammers want.
Put in a registration process that needs several fields filled out as standard format.
Time-consuming registration processes slow up or deter spammers, and numerous necessary fields to be filled out, enables you to note shonky registrations quickly.

Delete spammers as fast as you can... within minutes if possible. They will try to log on right at your local bedtime, so they can get overnight exposure, before they are found and deleted by you the following morning.

Avoid automated registration, or put in place a convoluted automated registration that takes up spammers time. They love unattended websites and forums, and automated registration that gets them inside the forum within a minute or two.

Manually examine every new forum users registration if you have to, even if it takes you a week, to sort them out and allow them through.
Spammers forget where they registered when they encounter delays of several days... or they forget what shonky free email address they used... so serious delays stuff them around.

Apart from that, you need to moderate the forum yourself, or have someone else moderate the forum, so abuse and uncivil behaviour doesn't proliferate.
On forums, many people often show their nasty side under the cloak of anonymity, they often tend to become uncivil... and numerous users will post whilst drunk. You need to weed out the troublemakers.

Unattended forums (no moderator) are a recipe for disaster, they will deteriorate into a shambles within weeks. Good luck, and be aware there is more work in running forums, than at first appears.

[Coffin Dodger]

Thanks. Probably safer to remove the potentially offending link :ouch:.

[CelticRambler]

I've got admin duties on a couple of forums hosted by freeforums.org (http://www.freeforums.org/) . It does all that you ask (including restricted access subforums) for free. Tech support is dire, nothing is ever their fault, but significant problems are relatively rare. You can use your own domain name or save a few £$€ by tagging your label onto theirs.

[markfly2way]

phpbb, vbulletin, dot net nuke al are good forum software choices.

[ExGrunt]

what legal liability might the forum initiator be accountable for?


You mention your estate, you should be aware of data protection issues. See this judgment where a woman in sweden was convicted of a criminal offence for listing the names of members of her church:

Lindqvist (Approximation of laws) [2003] EUECJ C-101/01 (06 November 2003) (http://www.bailii.org/eu/cases/EUECJ/2003/C10101.html)

HTH

EG

[jcjeant]

Hi,

Very easy to set a simple forum .. despite many options (user friendly)
ProBoards - Free Forums & Free Message Boards (http://www.proboards.com)