Forum software

[chromate]

I'm thinking about starting a forum on one of my sites. I'm not certain if I want to do it yet as I know from other people how hard building a community can be. However, it might be worth it. I'm just thinking about it and wondering what forum software would be best. Obviously vBulletin seems to work well, but costs.

What makes vBulletin any better than say, phpBB?

[MarkB]

You won't know until you use it - and then all becomes clear

Seriously, anyone who says that phpBB is better than vBulletin has never used vB's admin interface, or dived into the power of its styling and template system.

As for whether to start a community or not, do you have any interaction with your users atm? Do they email you? Do you have other features (polls, guestbook, whatever) that are used? Any indication that people are looking to get together to discuss your site's topic?

Nothing worse than someone throwing on a community feature simply 'because'...

[Best.Flash]

Doubt it's what you after but I see ego7 (http://www.ego7.com/) have released their Flash based forum software - example of the front-end here:

http://www.ego7.net/

[MattM]

Originally posted by MarkB
You won't know until you use it - and then all becomes clear

Seriously, anyone who says that phpBB is better than vBulletin has never used vB's admin interface, or dived into the power of its styling and template system.

I have to agree. Some of the features they are introducing with phpBB 2.2 were in vB2 when it came out! You can't compare any other forum software to vB3.

[Mike]

Imho you should use something free like IPB or phpBB at first. There's no point buying a VBulletin licence for a forum that may not be successful.

[MattM]

Originally posted by Mike
Imho you should use something free like IPB or phpBB at first. There's no point buying a VBulletin licence for a forum that may not be successful.

Yep, use IPB or phpBB and then if your needs grow, use vB.

[chromate]

Originally posted by MarkB
Nothing worse than someone throwing on a community feature simply 'because'...

I totally agree. That's why I'm putting some thought into it. I think a bad forum is almost like a bad advert for a site; People look at it and if they see nothing's happening they assume that it means the whole site must be dead or worthless etc. Obviously that's something I need to avoid

The forum would be for my Carbohydrate Counter site. I do get quite a few emails from users thanking me and saying how useful they find it etc. So I sense a willingness to "interact." I've also run a Burst!Media survey which quite a few of the users have completed. I actually haven't run any polls as yet. Seems like a good idea though to really see how willing the users are to participate. I may run a few as a kind of prelude to opening a forum to discuss the results or something or even as a gage to work out if it's even worth having a forum.

There are a couple of other sites that run "dieting" forums and it seems that dieters love to get together, discuss and support eachother in their attempts to lose weight. However, not being a dieter myself, I find the thought of connecting with my users on a discussion level a bit scary. Is it possible to be a silent forum administrator? lol

I've used phpBB before and haven't really found it to be that bad. Just wondered what the big deal was with vBulletin really.

[emke]

Let me start of by saying I won't get into a debate with anyone on what forum is better as everyone are somehow so for a specific script. I feel that it's so much about feature that and feature this and most of the features aren't even that important.

Although obviously vBulletin is a more complex script it has a lot more features and yes I've worked with both vBulletin and phpBB if someone is interested. I like phpBB more than any other forum script out there.

The thing is that it's really simple and the templates are easier to edit than with vBulletin IMO. The biggest drawback is the administration interface where vBulletin has a lot more features but you can do everything fundamental with phpBB. phpBB 2.2 will still not have as many features as vBulletin but when they release it I feel that with the added functionality to the administration that's already in place and some features missing right now in 2.0 series phpBB 2.2 will be a better allround script than vBulletin.

I'm not saying it'll have more features than vBulletin. It never will! I don't like the cluttered interface of vBulletin anyway and go for the simplicity. That for me is phpBB. A lot of people will go for vBulletin but I honestly feel that it's hyped for no apparent reason. I'm not going into the price factor at all.

[chromate]

That's what I've been wondering. What the vBulletin features are that phpBB doesn't have that make it worth the price.

As I say, I've used phpBB before without any problems and I've found the templates easy to change.

Thing is, say I start off using phpBB and then find I want to switch to vBulletin, then I'll lose all of the threads, messages and user accounts that have been built around phpBB, right? Or is there some way to import them into vBulletin?

To be honest, I think I would rather get it right first time and save having to do a big swap.

[MattM]

Originally posted by chromate
Thing is, say I start off using phpBB and then find I want to switch to vBulletin, then I'll lose all of the threads, messages and user accounts that have been built around phpBB, right? Or is there some way to import them into vBulletin?

Nope, you won't. There are import scripts available.

[chromate]

That's good. Do they cost? Still, the users would have to get used to a new way of operating the forums.

[MattM]

Nope.

[MarkB]

chromate: do you have any user tools already on your site? Such as a weight-loss chart for the users to use (keep track of online), goals met, goal aims... you know the kind of thing.

It might be worth trying to first interact with the users in that way (to get them used to working with the site instead of just reading it).

Also, yes, you can be a silent administrator - although to begin with you will need to put some legwork in Eventually you'll be able to bring in moderators, or even a dedicated forum admin if work demands it.

All in all, though, I've run 4 large communities (my current one has almost 30k members), as well as 3-4 smaller ones - a number of these in a professional capacity (I used to work for a band management/media company), and none are the same Your community is what you (and your users) make it!

Good luck!

[chromate]

I'm halfway through writing a "weight tracker" script for the users to record their weight and set target weights etc. I think I'll wait until this is complete and people are using it before doing the forum as you suggest. I'll also run a few polls.

I'm just trying to think ahead a bit.