Starting a Forum / Board Website

[oatmeal]

I don't want to make money with it. That's not the intention but certainly wouldn't turn it down
if the opportunity presents itself.

I just want know how exactly to create / start my own discussion website / board / forum?

It's not related to blackhat or anything like that. I'm into talking about a lot of ethical, moral, philosophical, religious, social, cultural, anthropological stuff...and I want to just start my own forum where I can invite users to join and share their posts or discuss/debate.

I've seen a lot of forums use a company called vbulletin I think? Does one have to pay a monthly or annual fee to host a forum/board website or is it a one-time fee + website hosting fees?

Would I also have to be responsible for what is written on the forum? For example, if someone posted some really offensive things, do I have to manage that and remove it or can I just leave it be and let the thing create itself? If a website/forum has controversial or offensive topics/discussions on there, could you be sued or have your forum taken down if those users complain or can I just ban their accounts and keep them out of the forum?

I know some forums, you can't see any content unless you join or it's very limited to what you can see until you join. I really want to allow a forum to be as open minded as possible, even if it upsets other people or offends them. As long as it's not anything like criminal, suggesting criminal activity etc...but if it's just really offensive words, I want to allow people to have the freedom to speak but would my forum get into any trouble by either the website hosting service or local law enforcement or even personal lawyer / civil action?

 

[Starblazer]

First of all, you need to have a niche for the forum (I hope you do). If it's a professional niche (money involved), then moderation is very important. If you let users have free speech, then there will be a lot of things it escalates to:

• spam
• affiliate promotion
• personal abuse/harassment
• distribution of pirated content
• hacking/warez related discussion
• adult content etc

All these things discourage users from actively engaging in the forum. Imagine a thread where a user asks if any weight loss product actually works, and the next 268 posts give affiliate links without adding any value to the discussion. The users will eventually avoid your forum. So, you need to find a balance between free speech and spam/abuse. It'll be tough and requires a lot of time & efforts.

 

[Deleted member 110025]

hi, I can see that you are an old member here.. man, most forums are dead .. I have been working with a specific niche (internet business forum for Latvians) - and there is almost no interest whatsoever.

Couple months ago I did a test and created a telegram group for my community - it is busy 24/7 since day 1.

Today people who search for answers go to platforms where they will get them immediately - forums have never been really fast for getting quality answers. Facebook groups are much more effective for these tasks, have to admit.

even warrior forum is dead-ish :/

From the other side, forums are still good to pull in longtail keyword traffic for sites.

Yes, there are still many great reasons to have a forum but for reasons other to have a discussion forum business.

Anyway,
Best of success!
H

p.s. Still, try it - I might be wrong. And, if you do - do create a FB group and Telegram group as well. There is a tale of King Solomon who said something about 3 ships

 

[oatmeal]

thank you for the replies. Yes I understand how things can go out of control if no moderation. I run a couple fb groups 20K members each so I know about spamming links, ads, etc. What I do to moderate my groups is allow preapproval to members I know are legit and don't abuse it. Everyone else has to go through moderation until I think this person can get pre-approval.

In a forum, I just came from one that has been around since 2001. It's a very old and long running forum with some 200,000 users (which I'm sure are not all active lol).
But it's a huge one and they have lots of ppl who answer your questions pretty quickly.

The problem I found was that with most forums, groups of people begin to take over and sort of bully others they don't agree with. Ultimately, I just want to start my own so that I don't have to deal with stuff anymore.

 

[Stas Va]

I don't think forums are dead. But to create any kind of community from 0 is super hard now. And forums structure maybe it's not the best way to start.

 

[Society Girl]

Removed links to other IM forum. Please don't do that. @nonin

 

[oatmeal]

I don't think forums are dead. But to create any kind of community from 0 is super hard now. And forums structure maybe it's not the best way to start.

Agreed. I know forums are still a very legit platform. But yes, it does depend on what the niche is AND it is hard to start them up from 0.

The thing is, I'm not looking to make money off it. I don't need it to grow to 10k members or more. I'd be very happy if it were under 1,000k total
and 200 of them were active. That's all I would need really.

Could anyone recommend a good hosting platform to start with? I have a "plan" on how to grow it so I'm not too worried.

 

[Deleted member 110025]

Removed links to other IM forum. Please don't do that. @nonin

ok

 

[leechesBleechin]

If your starting from nothing probably best to make a subreddit instead. I don't see very many actual forums anymore these days sadly. Subreddits are good though, you just don't have 100% final control. But you can take bribes so thats a thing.

 

[awesomewebsites]

hi, I can see that you are an old member here.. man, most forums are dead .. I have been working with a specific niche (internet business forum for Latvians) - and there is almost no interest whatsoever.

Couple months ago I did a test and created a telegram group for my community - it is busy 24/7 since day 1.

Today people who search for answers go to platforms where they will get them immediately - forums have never been really fast for getting quality answers. Facebook groups are much more effective for these tasks, have to admit.

even warrior forum is dead-ish :/

From the other side, forums are still good to pull in longtail keyword traffic for sites.

Yes, there are still many great reasons to have a forum but for reasons other to have a discussion forum business.

Anyway,
Best of success!
H

p.s. Still, try it - I might be wrong. And, if you do - do create a FB group and Telegram group as well. There is a tale of King Solomon who said something about 3 ships

How will you monetise the telegram group?

 

[Chippar]

I have a group of friends that abandoned a forum where the owner went MIA, took most of the members with them and started on Proboards. You can use your own domain and their platform, but there's a single ad down the bottom of each page unless you pay for ad free.
Not a bad platform, for someone with a bit of tech savvy can be really good.

 

[Deleted member 110025]

How will you monetise the telegram group?

This question should be addressed to Russian members. My group is not at that LVL. Usually: Paid ads with links (no other ads allowed).

Any RU members here wish to come out of the dark?

 

[blackbeans]

Don't use Vbulletin... use Xenforo instead

Better architecture and design

Less clunky

BHW runs on Xenforo

THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE TO FORUMS? Getting critical mass - if you're new, you have few posts. People aren't going to post if there are few posts.

See the "chicken and egg" problem?

 

[Deleted member 1333509]

THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE TO FORUMS? Getting critical mass

That's an interesting point - how do you think most forums solve this? How did BHW solve this?

 

[Sweely]

Have you considered starting a subreddit or Facebook Group instead?

The biggest Swedish affiliate marketing forum right now is in the form of a Facebook Group. Forums are dead in that regard.

That should tell you something.

 

[LoungeMedia]

you should start the forum if you think you can bring in the traffic, if not then just do what you are comfortable with

 

[Panther28]

That's an interesting point - how do you think most forums solve this? How did BHW solve this?

They laser focus a topic and become the best at it, and word soon spreads, you can use easier methods now such as postloop.com

Make a bunch of important sticky topics, covering each niche of the forum in depth,

 

[Deleted member 1333509]

They laser focus a topic and become the best at it, and word soon spreads, you can use easier methods now such as postloop.com

Make a bunch of important sticky topics, covering each niche of the forum in depth,

Postloop seems dead as a door-nail.. out of curiosity, what was it?

 

[blackbeans]

That's an interesting point - how do you think most forums solve this? How did BHW solve this?

I can't speak for BHW but many niche-specific forums would hire PAID forum posters while doing active marketing campaigns

This has the effect of getting the forum to switch over to "organic" or real user activity after some time.