[Irena]

Hi everyone,

I need to put up a large forum (for a lot of users) and I was thinking I'd use Proboards.com since it is free and looks fine to me, AND needs no programming skills on my part and no hosting. I was just wondering what everyne's thoughts were on this. How reliable is it, in terms of functioning acceptably etc, and not disappearing all of a sudden or terminating the services? Also, if anyone has any other suggestions, preferably free of charge, I would appreciate it very much.

Thank you!
Irena

[Phill]

to be honest i would never use a free forum. I use PHPBB at http://www.nitro-net.co.uk/forums/ and it has done me fine.

It used to be bigger, but I only just relaunched the website

Yes it needs hosting, but it is the easiest and most simple to use, and of course you have the option available for modding etc in the future, should you need to.

[.PJ]

Try and Find someone who can offer you a free invsion Power Board, they rock!!

PJ

[CreativeLogic]

How many members are we talking about? How fast would the site grow? I could help you out!

[Irena]

Thank you,

I would not want to pay for it as the expenses can be unpredictable I guess - an admin I know says her board costs her thousands of $$$ per year. I would not want to run into that kind of problems. I would much rather get it up and running and let someone else take care of it, as I have other things to worry about. I expect there would be maybe around 2000 members eventually on my board, but I cannot really predict.
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/programming/62036-adding-a-forum-any-suggestions.html

I am just wondering what the problem could be with free boards like Proboards. I have one with them but there is only a few members yet, and it has been ok so far. I can also customize it (colours at least) and manage messages. It is not as cool as Invision Boards but I am quite happy with it, so I wondered what everyone's experiences were with them and how reliable they are. (By that I mean I had a free guestbook and on two occasions I had entries suddenly disappear, for no reason at all.)

Thanks for your help!

[Kodeking]

One thing is that I don't think you can upload a custom style for your forum. A successful forum usually has a custom style to mimic its context.

These services do not allow custom features to be installed on your board so you can't bring custom features into the community. Take Namepros for example, members can earn forum money, get whois information and get free eNom accounts. Another feature that promotes activity is the revenue sharing. On a free board, you would lose the ability to add such features.

One thing to be worried about is lack of control over the board. The service can place as much advertising as they want anywhere they want on the board. They also have the power to shut your forum down whenever they please.

I hope this helps to answer your question.

[Irena]

Thank you, it definitely does help! I am new to it - have been a user for quite a while but never an ADMIN!!

Thank you everyone, and I hope your New Year is superb!

[harkster]

You might take a look at http://simplemachines.org/

Their seupport forums are GREAT. I converted 2 IPB (small) to SMF. Converted the first, custom skinned 6to site design the first in about 4 hours (learning curve) and the second in under an hour. Soooooooooooo easy to custom skin.

I hear that Fantisco will soon offer it as a replacement for the no longer free IPB.

[Gaffer Sports]

I use invision 1.3 which was the last free version of the invision series. I shall be changing however, as I do not feel invision have provided enough to tempt me into buying their next generation.

I am looking at the simple machines forum which seems to be extremely close to the factors I require in a forum.

I have been looking at paid forums, and VBulletin is the only one I would pay if I decided to opt that route.

Steve.

http://www.thegaffer.com

[NP41215]

Originally Posted by Gaffer Sports

I use invision 1.3 which was the last free version of the invision series. I shall be changing however, as I do not feel invision have provided enough to tempt me into buying their next generation. I am looking at the simple machines forum which seems to be extremely close to the factors I require in a forum. I have been looking at paid forums, and VBulletin is the only one I would pay if I decided to opt that route. Steve. http://www.thegaffer.com

What can vBulletin do that SMF cannot? I mean among the important functions?

[Sabre]

This should be in website development

[.PJ]

Yes you are correct, Sabre you should be a mod, your always on

PJ

[Sabre]

Thanks .PJ for the kind words

[emma_leigh]

Originally Posted by Irena

Hi everyone, ????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=62036 I need to put up a large forum (for a lot of users) and I was thinking I'd use Proboards.com since it is free and looks fine to me, AND needs no programming skills on my part and no hosting. I was just wondering what everyne's thoughts were on this. How reliable is it, in terms of functioning acceptably etc, and not disappearing all of a sudden or terminating the services? Also, if anyone has any other suggestions, preferably free of charge, I would appreciate it very much. Thank you! Irena

I use Invision Power Board, although as mentioned above you will need someone to offer it to free of charge as they now charge to download it

[Nunim]

Ha I still have my trial 2.0 Final and my 1.3 final's on my webserver backedup Yeah don't use remote hosting its very unprofessional. And for 2000 Members it won't cost thousands. Mabye need like 50 GB of bandwith or more and 2 GB space.

[Walter]

You could use wbboard ( http://woltlab.de/ ), i'm using it also and it's very configureable and the min price for it is 25 euro. There is also a lite version which is for free. There is another forum which is kinda linked together http://www.wbbhacks.com/ and there they offer all kinda of mods and addons.