Help/advice with making my own forum

D

DaRuSsIaMaN

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Apr 22, 2007
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Basically, I've never made a forum before, and I'm not familiar with how it works. So, I'm looking for some general as well as specific advice/recommendations.

Right now, I'm thinking that this is what I will do: I'll download phpbb from phpbb.com and design a forum, after which I will find a site which will host my forum for free. Is that a reasonable way to do it? There is an alternative method, right? Could I just choose a template from a site and then get a forum going that way without even needing to use phpbb?

Any recommendations for sites that will do the hosting? I did some searching, and there are apparently plenty of such sites. Any advice on which one I should choose? I want good terms of service, for example. I think one site I saw has it its terms that it will take the forum down if it's inactive for 30 days. That would suck.

Finally, I can't devote a load of time to this. I need a method to make this happen quickly, easily and free (or at least cheap. I could shell out some bucks if I think it is truly worth it).

So, suggestions? Thanks, much appreciated.
 
I don't know any ISP's that will host a forum for free. Unless you do something like yahoo or MSN groups. There are plenty out there that will do it for a price. Whatever forum software you decide on you'll also need MySQL to run the database. Ideally this would run on a different server.
I also suggest setting up the forum and configuring it yourself. That's how you'll learn how to manage it. Visit the forums of whatever program you are looking at and there should be lots of help to be found for setup and configuration.
 
Mister Natural said:
I don't know any ISP's that will host a forum for free.
Click to expand...

Well, what does this mean? Check out forumforfree.com or freeforums.org really quick. The first one says "offers free IPB & phpBB forum hosting." Or the other one says "FreeForums.org's free forum hosting offers more features..." Does that mean something other than what I think it means? Am I missing something?

Thanks for the help
 
freeforums and the other one give you a new instance of phpbb on their servers, so you just sign up and you get a hosted forum, and you can change the theme and treat it as any other phpbb install.
 
If you can find hosting, I kinda have a liking to punBB, very simple (that's the point), and very fast. Doesn't require nearly as much effort in learning and maintenance as the "big boys" do in terms of forum software, so if you're interested in running a small forum, it's worth looking into.

http://punbb.informer.com/
 
BillLeeLee said:
freeforums and the other one give you a new instance of phpbb on their servers, so you just sign up and you get a hosted forum, and you can change the theme and treat it as any other phpbb install.
Click to expand...

So does that mean I wouldn't need to download phpbb at all? It's like they run phpbb on their server in my stead, but based on what settings I choose? Am I understanding it correctly?

Would they still let me upload a design I made myself if I did want to do that?
 
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