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New Forums

What do you think I should make the Forums about?

  • Gaming (Xbox 360, PS3, Etc)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • A Specific Game(s) (Like this Forum. Please say which game)

    Votes: 1 12.5%
  • Random Topics (Let people have freedom to say whatever)

    Votes: 2 25.0%
  • Other (Please state)

    Votes: 5 62.5%

  • Total voters
    8

Zjuggernaut

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New Forums

I was thinking about setting up my own Forums but I would just to know what most people would want to see or talk about.

So if you could please take the poll and post, that'd be great. :D
 

ScareCrowReturn

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Re: New Forums

Im a person who likes to talk about what, whenever. So yeah Freedom one. But it could be like this where its about a game but has a section for freedom talk.
 

Zjuggernaut

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Re: New Forums

ScareCrowReturn;274657 said:
Im a person who likes to talk about what, whenever. So yeah Freedom one. But it could be like this where its about a game but has a section for freedom talk.

That's sort of what I was thinking.
 

Tsuyu

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Re: New Forums

Then have fun wading through spam, Viagra and penis pump ads. Its a chore taking care of most of the advertising spam-o-bots in our off-topic forum - and thats just a small section of your forum, not a whole one dedicated to off-topicness alone.

Freedom for all is all well and good - until you realize it has to apply to exactly everyone.
 

Zjuggernaut

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Re: New Forums

Tsuyu;274659 said:
Then have fun wading through spam, Viagra and penis pump ads. Its a chore taking care of most of the advertising spam-o-bots in our off-topic forum - and thats just a small section of your forum, not a whole one dedicated to off-topicness alone.

I didn't think of that. Yeah, those Viagra ads scare the crap out of me. I sometimes think it's God implying something...
Any suggestions on what I should do?
 

Tsuyu

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Re: New Forums

Get a good forum software. Running a good forum isn't going to be cheap, but with the anti-spam features and other bits of awesomeness makes up for it in the end.

Steve (projectego) probably knows a lot more than I do since he is running these forums after all. You should try asking him.
 

Silent420

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Re: New Forums

Probably a specific game, but if your forums become popular don't be like most forums and be power hungry............:ermm:
 

cheezMcNASTY

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Re: New Forums

make one for the crowned jewels of bethesda.
fallout
elder scrolls
 

droded

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Re: New Forums

Make it about me.
 

Angel

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Re: New Forums

If you are going to go for a forum then try to be specific to begin with otherwise you might find yourself biting off more than you can chew. Too many categories and options can confuse the average net surfer and you can end up with a sparse looking forum full of subforums but few threads and posts.

Advertising and promotion is a must if you want a successful site but again, this takes time and patience - you can't just advertise anywhere and often other sites where you post your link in your sig or wherever have a no-follow tag in the code which means you get no linkbacks - people might visit by clicking but the search engines won't pick up on it and it's them you want to attract the most so that you feature highly in the SERPS (search engine result pages).

As Tsuyu said, coughing up the dollars for the better software is a must - free forums are all very well but often they are limited in many areas. We use VBulletin, primarily, (although I do have a Drupal forum of my own as well which is free), and it comes with a vast array of plug-ins, options and security which free forums don't always have. Plus a free forum can sometimes be on the back of another site so in order to access your area people have to trawl through other places to find it. You also may have little to no control over the advertisments whereas with VBulletin you can customise them in order to make money off them, which helps with the costs.

Basically, if you want a Vbulletin licence there are two types - owned and leased. If you own a licence it'll cost you $180.00 (not including any extra taxes such as VAT) and you get a years' worth of free updates. You get the software indefinitely plus full online support when you need it - but you need to pay $60 per year thereafter if you want to continue to receive updates (highly recommended). A leased licence costs $100.00 and is only available for 1 year, so you need to renew it or remove all software from your site.

If you have time and patience, a forum can be very rewarding and good fun - but you need to be prepared to put the work in and if you can't, you need to find people you can trust to appoint as moderators/staff. Too often someone will start a forum and the first people to sign up get asked to be staff without even knowing if they are any good - or they pick their best friends for the job and find they can't control what they do without falling out. But if you just want a forum for kicks and you're not too fussed about it being well-known or successful - or you don't want to make money off it - then no need to go for VBulletin. Try Drupal (even though it takes a bit of getting used to) or SMF - you'll still get traffic and visitors so with any luck, word of mouth will help encourage more people to sign up and talk about your forum in other places.
 

Silent420

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Re: New Forums

Nice tips +rep.
 

cheezMcNASTY

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Re: New Forums

the forums i used to browse used Phpbb, it's a pretty basic forum layout and can look very nice. It doesn't have as many cool features as these boards but i believe it is free.
http://www.phpbb.com/

another free forum board i know of is invisionfree
www.invisionfree.com

their boards are very generic, but there are several good sites that provide various skins and themes you can apply. Also, your forum would be linked on the invisionfree main database so any player looking for <insert forum subject here> would be able to find it with little difficulty.
 

Zjuggernaut

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Re: New Forums

Thanks for all that.
I was thinking about PHPBB because i've heard it gives very similar benefits to VBulliten and it's free. I'm not sure if this was only a rumour or not but I was just curious. I'll take your advice and be patient with it. I'm going to have to make sure that I become a little more advanced before I actually start making anything.

I've tried Free Forums but the Ads are everywhere and the Forums logo is the logo for the website.

Once again, thanks a lot.

+rep for that.
 
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