Message board Reccomendations

[AffiliateMarketer]

I have a website that would benefit from a forum. I've always avoided forums before due to the hard work involved with moderation.

Is anybody able to recommend any good ones. Obviously they will need to be advertising friendly.

Merci

 

[DesignerNick]

VBulletin all the way

 

[terryuk]

I would say vBulletin just put on some good spam protection, you will find the bots find you quicker than you can say eat my shorts...

But I'm sure a spam riddled forum has some benefits

 

[mugatea]

I have considered a couple of times of putting a forum on my wordpress website. There are some pretty great free forum plugins. I found the easiest overall was the Mingle forum plugin.

 

[ITsoldUK]

What flavour CMS does your website use?

 

[Surminga]

BBPress is great for wordpress if that's what you are using.
Outside of Wordpress I'd stick to the ever reliable vBulletin - easy to setup, user friendly and one of the best for years etc.

 

[I, Brian]

vbulletin can be good for big sites, but frankly for smaller/quieter forums I find SMF is better.

I used to run 20+ vbulletins, but now only a handful run vb. It's just not worth the cost and hassle of vb on small sites IMO.

 

[eventdomain]

I own a forum, as well as other publishing sites. Forums ARE HARD work, you need to build posts, attract a decent membership, promote it, then moderate it.

Its good fun, also providing a useful resource ofcourse, but you must weigh this up Vs benefits and ROI to see if its worth doing. Vbulletin is probably the best, as I've heard its security/spam protection, banning ability is good (maybe someone can confirm that) - but whatever forum software you use, you'll be hit by spam faster than the highest speed of Pentium processor.

Starting one off is pretty easy, just build posts daily, but for future you'll need Moderators to do this for you and help maintain the site is essential.

This is not an easy undertaking for the long-term I feel, too many marketing forums about now. Maybe buying one is the best option these days as it'll have a current membership.

 

[ITsoldUK]

I own a forum, as well as other publishing sites. Forums ARE HARD work, you need to build posts, attract a decent membership, promote it, then moderate it.

Its good fun, also providing a useful resource ofcourse, but you must weigh this up Vs benefits and ROI to see if its worth doing. Vbulletin is probably the best, as I've heard its security/spam protection, banning ability is good (maybe someone can confirm that) - but whatever forum software you use, you'll be hit by spam faster than the highest speed of Pentium processor.

Starting one off is pretty easy, just build posts daily, but for future you'll need Moderators to do this for you and help maintain the site is essential.

This is not an easy undertaking for the long-term I feel, too many marketing forums about now. Maybe buying one is the best option these days as it'll have a current membership.

He did not ask for opinion, he asked for a board recommendation

Back in your box C.G.

I will make a recommendation once I know what his current site is being controlled by (CMS) if any...

 

[eventdomain]

He did not ask for opinion, he asked for a board recommendation

Risky to splash the cash and effort on a forum without getting adequate opinions from people who have actually done it.

 

[ITsoldUK]

Risky to splash the cash and effort on a forum without getting adequate opinions from people who have actually done it.

You or I do not know for a fact how far down the decision path he/she is.

As they are asking for recommendations rather than opinions, this could suggest they have weighed up the pro's and con's previously...

Anyway, this is OT so lets get the guys and gals BOT.

 

[Harvest]

simpleress is pretty good, easy to use and set up, and it's free. It's fairly well documented on codex but the only downside is that if you want access to the support forums then there's a fee - $99 for 12 months which is pretty hefty. There's a demo available online if you want to take a look.

 

[Harvest]

oops - it's called simple(colon)press - I think that bit got converted to a smiley!

simpleress is pretty good, easy to use and set up, and it's free. It's fairly well documented on codex but the only downside is that if you want access to the support forums then there's a fee - $99 for 12 months which is pretty hefty. There's a demo available online if you want to take a look.

 

[eventdomain]

this could suggest they have weighed up the pro's and con's previously...

No it doesn't - people set up forums all the time, their decision is based on that they've seen what appears to be other's success, only to discover 12 months later they can't get the level of members to make one work.

Goes on all the time - its called poor brainstorming. You need an escape plan built into every website, the idea being you can 'get something from it' if it goes pear shaped and cut your losses.

Problem is forums are so difficult to build up - and the OP is entering an established marketplace. I know its tempting, and if you build a good one, then it might work - I mean even if its a unique/niche forum, it could have value, but also a reduced member base compared to an all-purpose biz version.

Also any new website won't have a marketing trigger in place, so its tough to kick-start it and looking at likely 2 years work just to get this going - are people prepared for such tremendous effort?

So its not a clear cut thing, and so many underestimate whats truly involved

 

[ITsoldUK]

simpleress is pretty good, easy to use and set up, and it's free. It's fairly well documented on codex but the only downside is that if you want access to the support forums then there's a fee - $99 for 12 months which is pretty hefty. There's a demo available online if you want to take a look.

27c a day (0.03c ph) hefty for professional support??

 

[Harvest]

well, it's a support forum where people can post their issues if they need help - this can be from members and not 'professionals', and whether they actually get it or not is another matter . Most free plugins, have a free forum.

27c a day (0.03c ph) hefty for professional support??