Page 1 of 1

How to start a forum

Posted: Wed Jul 12, 2006 4:09 pm
by Luke
I'm thinking of starting a forum for cakephp because it has such horrible documentation and I don't like google groups. I'm just looking for some advice on starting up a forum and recruiting members.

Posted: Wed Jul 12, 2006 4:11 pm
by RobertGonzalez
First, promote it here! OK ok, I'll quiet down about that. But put one up and start posting in it. Make sure there are links in your posts. It won't take long for it to fill up googles results. Hell, have you ever search for your PHPDN handle on google to see what comes up? How many results are forum posts from here?

Posted: Wed Jul 12, 2006 4:53 pm
by daedalus__
I searched for 'daedalus camicus' on google and while my website does not rank, my posts here do.

Posted: Wed Jul 12, 2006 5:22 pm
by RobertGonzalez
Here are the google results for my handle 'Everah'. Please note, MY WEB SITE IS NUMBER 1 BABY, YEAH, WHO'S THE MAN, YEAH!

/ small cough, uh, yeah, sorry about that.

Notice how many of those are forum related links? In fact, I just signed up four a useBB account last week. It is at number 9.

Posted: Wed Jul 12, 2006 6:16 pm
by Burrito
funny...'burrito' doesn't bring up anything in here.

Posted: Wed Jul 12, 2006 6:21 pm
by RobertGonzalez
But it does bring up my appetite. Hmmm, burritos...

Posted: Wed Jul 12, 2006 6:23 pm
by RobertGonzalez
Burrito wrote:funny...'burrito' doesn't bring up anything in here.
On DevNet? 1193 results for 'burrito' as author. 259 when used as the search term. On google, well heck, forget about that. Unless you are looking for a burrito recipe or burrito restaurant.

Posted: Wed Jul 12, 2006 6:27 pm
by Burrito
Everah wrote: On DevNet? 1193 results for 'burrito' as author. 259 when used as the search term....
well at least that's comforting.

Posted: Fri Jul 14, 2006 12:36 pm
by Luke
How about software? I don't have the time to develop forum software, but I am happy to spend a little $$ to get one if it is worth it. What are your suggestions on forum software? The only ones I know of are phpBB and vBulletin, but I know nothing about either (other than posting on them).

Posted: Fri Jul 14, 2006 12:39 pm
by RobertGonzalez
Someone posted about useBB. There is also fudForum and YABB. In fact, if you go to the phpBB web site and look into their converters, they list a number of other forum packages that they can convert from. That might not be a bad place to 'go shopping' for a software package.

phpBB is nice, but is has had some security issues in the past. It is also a little tough to maintain at times, when it comes to the skins and templates that are applied. MODs are a little difficult at times also. I haven't used the others, but useBB seems like a fast alternative to phpBB.

Posted: Fri Jul 14, 2006 12:51 pm
by Luke
UseBB looks like it will be perfect for my project. Thanks!

I just need to find out if I am going to be able to use their login system on the rest of the site I am building for other functionality. It shouldn't be too difficult, but if it is... I bet phpBB would probably have a lot more resources on how to do so, huh?

Posted: Fri Jul 14, 2006 1:16 pm
by RobertGonzalez
Surpisingly, no. There answer to using their login system is to build your site around their app. Sounds silly, but when I looked in their docs earlier this year that is what was posted.

I have forked their login system before, but the very next upgrade absolutely got porked by my changes, so I did away with my changes in favor of being to update their software.

Posted: Fri Jul 14, 2006 1:18 pm
by MrPotatoes
if i'm not writing my own forum (like the one i'm doing now) i'd prefer to use phorum

http://www.phorum.org/
this is what the forum looks like:
http://www.phorum.org/phorum5/

the instal is a little annoying, they could fix that...