I want to start a forum, how hard can it be?

I want to start a forum about what I think will be an up and coming topic (no worries, it wont compete with GRM). How does one go about doing this? Very very very little experience with HTML.

I frequent a nothing forum that was free, the server is darkbb.

http://www.darkbb.com/

I'm curious about what is up and coming and needs a forum. If its needs a forum, it must be important.

Probably a forum just for zombies, about all the easy pickin's places to find brains.

Is it about this? I hear its the next big thing.

Any of the popular bulletin board packages, there's a ton of them, I've used phpbb before and it's pretty straightforward.

I use Vbulletin for my forum. Granted I bought my setup already done from another person, but from what i've played with, it's pretty easy.

phpBB is free, easy, soft on the server database, and has tons of add-ons and packages. You can get up-and-running in 10 minutes, and all the configuration is though a comprehensive GUI. The permissions are a pain for all the forums and categories, but other than that, it's pretty good.

If you know CSS and the box model (margin, padding, borders, positioning), you can make any of them look good, too.

There are 3 things you will need for a forum on your own domain, a hosting company account, a dns registry, and the forum software.

Generally a hosting company can offer the other 2 services as part of the account. I used fatcow which also offered DNS registry and various forum software I could install (I used smf). There are tons of tutorials on how to do this. Good Luck!

CSS helps a bunch when customizing the forum, but it is easy to learn the basics from youtube tutorials.

I used an easy free one for my site. You can make it more complex as you customize it more, but no need. They have plenty off templates.

JamesMcD wrote: Probably a forum just for zombies, about all the easy pickin's places to find brains.

Well since he is in Tampa (as am I), I'm sure he will agree that there are plenty of zombies here already. Especially in beige Camrys, doing 10 under the speed limit in the left lane

I'd recommend it--having your own forum is tons o'fun.

Margie

AND you get to ban people!!!

Simple Machines!

http://www.simplemachines.org/

My g/f set one up in an evening for a car event. Pretty sure she used vbulletin. She's organized 3 multi-day, multi-state car rallys, so herding cats she can do... sometimes.

However, I have no idea if this is a normal timespan as she a classic-type engineer who will set upon a problem like a starved dog to the detriment of anything else that may need to get done... Plus, she was motivated some by spite - we have some friends who are famous for saying they'll do something and then finally finding the time some months later whereas my g/f has the patience of a 3 year old and when you say you're going to do something, she expects it to be done NOW.

Is Vbulletin free?

Enyar wrote: I want to start a forum about what I think will be an up and coming topic (no worries, it wont compete with GRM). How does one go about doing this? Very very very little experience with HTML.

It is pretty easy, but will cost you a few bucks a month.

1. sign up for a hosting account. I use mddhosting, if you use this link i get a referral http://www.mddhosting.com they have very good support and are not one of those really big hosting co. that don't care about their clients.

2. buy a domain name and point it at their name servers. I use name cheap for domains they are a good company much better than the one that sponsors danica.

3. login to the cpanel and use a 1 click installer to setup phpbb forums or vanilla forums. the script will install everything for you amd give you an admin login to the forum control panel.

I can help you out with a lot more detail if you want help but that should get you started.

Enyar wrote: Is Vbulletin free?

Is not free and is expensive there are good alternatives http://vanillaforums.org/ and phpbb

Ok, she definitely didn't use vbulletin if its not free.

proboards.com is free and if it can handle the hugeness that is the retro-rides forum then it can handle anything.

Ok great, I didn't think Vbulletin was free but I've been talking to a few people and they all thought it was. Does anyone know how much it runs for? If the forum did gain traction, Is there anyway to transfer data to vbulletin so we dont lose posts?

I honestly don't know the cost, my lifetime license came with the site when I bought it from the PO.

Enyar wrote: Ok great, I didn't think Vbulletin was free but I've been talking to a few people and they all thought it was. Does anyone know how much it runs for? If the forum did gain traction, Is there anyway to transfer data to vbulletin so we dont lose posts?

vbulletin is $249 for a new license. I know they have import scripts for some of the more popular forum software packages.