OT- Anyone ever start a forum?

SaltySam

First off, no...not another BGE forum.  I like this one just fine!  

My buddy and I want to start our own fishing forum.  I may have some sponsors lined up.  The name of the website is available, and we have some ideas about how we want to format it.  Aside from that, we are wading into new territory.  As of right now, we aren't looking to turn a profit by any means.  Just want to get an online community going. 

Any ideas on a good place to start?

Thanks! 

Mickey

Why would you want the abuse %-(

SaltySam

Well, I'm hoping that there will be enough punch in the punchbowl to counteract the turds.  

henapple

Ask @Zarcon‌

RRP

No, but you might want to start a blog and allow people to comment. Within 6 months or so you I'll know if the time, hassle and interest is there to kick it up a knotch.

The Cen-Tex Smoker

zarcon has a few i think. Send him a meesage or hit him up over at the nest.

Fred19Flintstone

Think about t-shirts and an inexpensive give aways like Firewires.  It makes your site memorable!

Mickey

Fred19Flintstone said:

Think about t-shirts and an inexpensive give aways like Firewires.  It makes your site memorable!

) ^:)^

Mickey

See the crap you will have to put up with....

SaltySam

I guess that answers that. Ha!

Durangler

Whats a FireWire? :-B

Like a shish ka bob thingy made from old worn out wiper blades?

:-?

blind99

Durangler said:

Whats a FireWire? :-B

Like a shish ka bob thingy made from old worn out wiper blades?

:-?

+1

Someone has GOT to post a wiper blade cook!

Zarcon

@SaltySam - If you want to hit me up here or at the Nest, I can try to help answer some questions for you.

Canugghead

blind99 said:

Whats a FireWire? :-B

Like a shish ka bob thingy made from old worn out wiper blades?

:-?

+1 Someone has GOT to post a wiper blade cook!

actually that'd be manwires as someone suggested 

I just marinaded a bucket of chicken thighs for tandoori cook in my authentic tandoor tomorrow, need to use the 40" long 1/4" thick tandoor skewers though 

tarheelmatt

There was this one guy, that was a part of a major Egg forum and asked a bunch of questions about what would be good etc. for a new Egg forum.  Then made a new forum.  Then he took a break from the major forum.    

Maybe you can do the same.  

MaskedMarvel

I've done a few. Hardest part is trying to defeat the spam.

SaltySam

This got derailed quickly.

I stated upfront that this was not another Big green egg forum. This forum is awesome, and I intend to stick around here for all BGE stuff. I am well aware of Zarcon's attempt to start another forum of his own, and how well that went for him. That was definitely not my intent. I just wanted to start a fishing forum and wanted to know what all was involved.

I just know that there are a ton of tech-savvy people on here, with a wide range of interests. I was just trying to see if anyone had any experience in starting up a website or potentially a forum, because I don't have any experience.

I like the way this forum works. I like the format. But, I have questions like: What's the upkeep like? How much does it cost to run? Etc. I'm not sure where to even start.

@tarheelmatt‌ I hope you just misread my initial post.

johnkitchens

I started one once before. Fighting the spammers is the worst part. 

You can start very cheap, You can get a domain name for around $10.00. Hosting is also not expensive. I have a reseller account so I can host as many sites as I want too for one price. 

You can download the software for free from simplemachines.org. It isn't that hard to set up.

I wish you luck. 

NervousDad

@SaltySam

I've started a few forums for my various hobbies. I'm highly skilled developer and I will say that it's not easy to start maintain a forum.

1. You'll need to have some skill in HTML/CSS/java script.

2. You'll have to be able to modify code files to fix bugs, apply updates and upgrades.

3. You'll need to be able to change files to thwart the ever changing spammers that can and will derail        your forum

That said there are many options to start a forum that are prebuilt. This forums is running vanilla forums, which is a cloud based hosting system (not sure of the price)

vBulletin also has a cloud based forum, it's great software, but it's fairly expensive.

phpBB is a open source software package, which is also great. You'll find tons of hosting companies that have preconfigured forums.

fishlessman

only problem i see is dealing with all the fishermen, cranky bunch
) not like the girls that play here

henapple

Grumpy old men..

Zarcon

@SaltySam - To stay on your original question(s), creating a 'Forums Only' website is really not that hard. It's best to have at least a basic idea of programming but it's not required for pre-configured forum package mentioned by @NervousDad. My advise to you is, since you have your domain name picked out: 1. Determine what kind of 'forums' you want to have. Do you want members to just post text or upload media? (Photos, videos, etc.) 1. Find a hosting company that allows you permissions to run the necessary script. For example, some scripts may require safe_mode to be 'Off' but some hosts will not allow you to use that. 2. Try to find a host that has offers cPanel and 'Softaculous'. Softaculous is a one-click installer that normally has a bunch of pre-configured forum packages like phpBB and many others. Hosting can be pretty cheap these days. I would think you could get a decent hosting package for about $10/month (give or take a few bucks). Stay away from 'contracts' if possible. You can always upgrade hosting later if you need more space/bandwidth. Maintaining it shouldn't cost you anything but your time. Incorporate some type of captcha or 'prove your a human' security to your join forum. Best practice to do is once you have everything in place, install the forum and start messing around with it. Have a friend help test it out and address anything that comes up. Also, most of the time you can find additional 'plug-ins' for forum packages on the net like Templates, YouTube, image uploaders, etc.

SaltySam

Thanks guys! This is very helpful!

Fred19Flintstone

Fishing forum, eh? I think the stories go like this:

Dear @SaltySam ,
You shoulda seen the one that got away!
Sincerely,
George Bailey

blind99

 

actually that'd be manwires as someone suggested 

I just marinaded a bucket of chicken thighs for tandoori cook in my authentic tandoor tomorrow, need to use the 40" long 1/4" thick tandoor skewers though 

@canugghead Sorry, I forgot those were your creation!  I think you are just the person to make this ManWire cook happen.  Maybe a soldering-iron powered tandoori ManWire cook?