starting a forum - follow me

[tooslim]

so im starting a new project. something i know nothing about.
Im going to be starting a forum. Its in a niche im interested in so this project will be a good learning experience and ill be having fun building it.

But i have questions right away and im going to need some help doing this, so this thread will serve as my journal on this project.

few questions:
1. what platform should i be using? i know of phpBB and vBulletin. differences?
2. how do you go about getting members? i plan on advertising in my signature of other like forums to start
3. do i need to have a lot of code knowledge?

all i have done so far i bought the domain name.


if anyone has experience and is willing to help me get started id appreciate it. I am not asking for anyone to hold my hand through this whole process, just a little guidance.

looking forward to getting started!

 

[peterbruce]

To get members I recommend social media marketing.
If you need any help shoot me a PM

 

[davids355]

Forum is hard work! I agree social marking is a good idea, signature advertising, get on some other forums in the niche and participate,

Also might be good if you can get 5-10 people to post on your forum in exchange for advertising or something - this will give the forum a kickstart - no one wants to come on an empty forum!

 

[tooslim]

im looking for someone who designs phpbb forum styles. if you do this please pm me

 

[Essence19]

vBulletin I have a forum doing well - Vbulletin ROCKS!!!!! 10 points looks fantatstic.

 

[tooslim]

thinking about mybb. pros and cons anyone?

 

[jamunkala]

thinking about mybb. pros and cons anyone?

the little details are missing like signature image limit and which moderator should have how much power, which forum should have what you can put every detail in mybb,

there are no good themes

Actually you wont reach far enough to reach for themes you will quit with mybb in a week or two if you are trying to make a forum which need details otherwise for warez forum and forums where you don't want to moderate much mybb is good, as it is fast and small script. Just setup everything and forget then comeback after 1 year remove all old threads and then again go missing for 1 year

Dont use phpbb either for same reasons also phpbb script cant be modified easily to even add a plugin

Only go for vbulletin or the other famous script known as IP Board ( which has improved a lot lately visually as well)

 

[Dally180]

I have used MyBB, it's the best in my opinion. It is lacking good themes, but you can pay someone to make a nice one for you.

 

[Dothra]

vBulletin is by far my favourite forum software but after that comes SMF.

 

[ohaider]

Simple Machines if you are going for a small userbase and don't want to drop the money on Vbulletin. However if you are cool with spending to make your forum awesome, Vbulletin all the way!

 

[PlannedObsolescence]

If you got the monies, go with vbull.
If not, SMF.

Also go on fiverr and pay someone to make xx amount of post
on your forum, to make it look like your getting traffic.

Cause no one wants to join a forum that has no traffic..

 

[pompano]

I use Mybb

I been having hosting problems with my forum lately and just changed the nameservers back to my old host. It is a lot more active then it is currently showing.

http://rskingdom.com

software: http://mybb.com

I also designed the forum so if you are looking for forum design. Hit me a PM.

 

[tooslim]

im looking into SMF then. Hopefully later down the road i will be able to monetize the forum enough to pay for vBull!

what about hosting? i just have mine on 000webhost temporarily because its free but whats the best for a forum.

 

[mwa145]

this is interesting

 

[pompano]

SMF is horrible.

Mybb offers great SEO Plugin for free of course.

You get URL rewrites, sitemap, custom 404 pages, auto generated meta for every thread. It pretty much does all the SEO for you.

I also would get a cheap hostgator plan. My forum has been up for about 4 months with hostgator and it has had 99.8% uptime.

 

[M1ndfluX]

I had once a very large forum say 8 yrs ago... Basically it was hard work, seriously.

Good luck!

 

[M1ndfluX]

There are differences 8 years ago and today.

Enlighten me pls. 8 Yrs ago was way less competition for instance, besides that if you want to run a quality site treat it as work, and no hour a day stuff...

 

[tooslim]

so im having a hard time getting the script installed on to my site. ive decided to use SMF ill update here later today once i get it figured out. if anyone has experience installing the script let me know. like i said im having trouble

 

[idoit]

Hehehehe ... Okay, first of all - thank you all!

I was just about to make a forum on my site. Then I read about phpbb. Then I read it's shit. I removed it (had it unzipped and ready to configure, already). Than I went for vBulletin. Then I found out it's not free. F*ck it!

Then I read it's hard work. I already work hard on my blog.

In the end: I'm not installing a bloody forum

Cheers!

 

[Junkfood00]

Hehehehe ... Okay, first of all - thank you all!

I was just about to make a forum on my site. Then I read about phpbb. Then I read it's shit. I removed it (had it unzipped and ready to configure, already). Than I went for vBulletin. Then I found out it's not free. F*ck it!

Then I read it's hard work. I already work hard on my blog.

In the end: I'm not installing a bloody forum

Cheers!

never heard about outsourcing?