PDA

View Full Version : How to set up a Forum



LordChaos13
2014-01-31, 06:41 AM
This is probably a stupid question but:
How does one set up a website like this?
Like a forum with subfora and posting and the UserCP

Is there an open source code? A tutorial?
Where do I get server space??? And how much would it cost roughly?

enderlord99
2014-01-31, 06:48 AM
Yo dawg, I heard you liek forums. (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/)

Grinner
2014-01-31, 07:02 AM
I imagine a solid understanding of PHP and MySQL would help.

From what little I know, it's basically the same as any other website. Unless a user goes to a specific URL, they're first directed to your index.html page. You may want to put your forum code there.

I don't know about code. Being based on PHP, the Playground's software is the source code. You can't use it, however, as it's copyrighted. As with all things it seems, there's probably an open-source forum software project somewhere out there.

As for hosting, there's a number of options. You'll probably want shared or cloud-based hosting, unless you're willing to host it on a home computer.

Cost depends on your plan and/or the amount of traffic you receive. From what I've heard, the Giant spends enough to rent a small apartment to maintain these forums, but he apparently also has one of the pricier options.

Finlam
2014-01-31, 08:00 AM
Honestly, if you're looking for where to start, then going into technical details about technologies like PHP and MYSQL won't help you.

I'd recommend going with a solution that is less pretty (from a technical/code standpoint), but will take 100x less time to set up if you aren't already familiar with SQL, PHP, and web-servers: Wordpress (http://wordpress.org/about/). It's not just a blogging platform, in fact, they have plugins (http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-wordpress-forum-plugins/) that make it super-crazy-easy to set up a forum.

I'd recommend getting your own domain on the cheap from blue-host, or GoDaddy, or one of the others. They all have one click wordpress installs now, and it's just one more click to install a forum plug-in. This will not be a free solution, but it will give you total control over the forums, it won't cost much, and it will be the easiest way to set up a forum that you own: period.

[EDIT]
Additional details: you need two things to have people access your forums: a domain name (the thing they type into the browser i.e. giantitp.com) and a server to host said domain name. GoDadday will sell you really cheap domain names, but they suck for hosting prices. Blue-Host, Dream-Host, or Host-Gator, are all cheaper (last time I checked...about 6 months ago). A domain name will run you about 10-15 a year, hosting will run you between $40-$80 a year (on the cheap side).

So you're looking at about ~$50-$100 a year range for a simple forum. Which breaks down to sub ~$10/month [If someone wants to double check my estimates, feel free; these are rough estimates]. So it's not free, but it's reasonably cheap for a small forum.

Proud Tortoise
2014-01-31, 09:53 AM
There are free forum websites. Like Zetaboards.

The Grue
2014-01-31, 04:09 PM
Of course it bears mentioning that setting up a forum does not automatically get you users.

A forum can't stand on its own, at least not to start with. You need something else to draw people to the site, for whom the forum exists as a vehicle to discuss it. This forum, of course, began with the OotS webcomic, and eventually reached a critical mass of users and started generating its own content.

LordChaos13
2014-01-31, 07:36 PM
Of course it bears mentioning that setting up a forum does not automatically get you users.

A forum can't stand on its own, at least not to start with. You need something else to draw people to the site, for whom the forum exists as a vehicle to discuss it. This forum, of course, began with the OotS webcomic, and eventually reached a critical mass of users and started generating its own content.

The forum is being set up as a favour for the founder of Signal Flare, a homeless charity organization operating in Brisbane
Though it wont be tied to Signal Flare, instead being more cross-charity things were people can meet up, discuss how to deal with the problem, learn how they can get involved in this stuff etc.

The Grue
2014-01-31, 09:38 PM
Ah, I misunderstood. A forum as a vehicle for coordinating an activity or activities is a very different beast than what I was thinking of. Depending on the level of interaction from visitors versus "organizers", you might want to consider a blog, as an addition if not instead.