OT - Creating Own Message Board

How hard or easy is it to create your own message board? I would like
to make one so people
can talk religion on. I want the ability to moderate to keep it clean. I
was looking at the vBulletin
site and they offer software for around $180.00 or so. Could a non expert
use vBulletin to set up a message board? I know how to buy a url and buy
server space on godaddy. I use to have my own basic html web page for a
year or so.

Thanks!

Hi!

How hard or easy is it to create your own message
board?

It depends upon what you choose to do. There are plenty of options.

If you elect to host your own, it can be somewhat involved, because
you'll have to get a server, install the operating system, configure
web server software, install bulletin board software, set up a
database and configure all of it. If there are good instructions
available for your choice, and if you're comfortable working on
databases and setting up a web server, you'll probably have it up and
running quickly (within a few hours).

(I set up a PHPBB (free) bulletin board using Apache for Win32 running
on Windows 2000 in VMware as the web server of choice and it took
roughly three hours to get it all going. A friend asked me what might
be involved in setting up that program and Gallery (v1.0 at the time),
so I dove in to find out with what was handy (hence the reason I used
Windows).)

Some hosting providers offer prepackaged versions of popular bulletin
board systems that you can buy as a part of a hosting plan.

The advantages to the above two ideas include no advertising if you
don't want it, and almost complete control over the forum. The
downsides are security (if you host it yourself, you have to make sure
that your software is up to date and even that is no guarantee) and
what happens if your hosting provider ever goes out of business or
stops supporting the software you chose.

I'm sure that Go Daddy hosting would have something that would
represent a 1-click (or close to) solution that would be reasonably
priced.

Or you can use a prepackaged solution such as something from
Microsoft, Yahoo or others. Lots of places offer free bulletin boards
where you can set something up quickly without needing much (if any)
knowledge of how it works.

Such free services are unquestionably easy to use in most cases, but
they're ad-supported and subject to sudden disappearance if the
company behind them loses interest/runs out of money/etc.

William

How hard or easy is it to create your own message board? I would like
to make one so people can talk religion on. I want the ability to
moderate to keep it clean. I was looking at the vBulletin site and
they offer software for around $180.00 or so. Could a non expert
use vBulletin to set up a message board?

I think Invision Power Board still have a free option...

http://www.invisionboard.com/

William R. Walsh wrote:
Hi!

How hard or easy is it to create your own message
board?

heck - just setup a "group" on Yahoo or Google - done -

Von Fourche wrote:
How hard or easy is it to create your own message board? I would like
to make one so people
can talk religion on. I want the ability to moderate to keep it clean. I
was looking at the vBulletin
site and they offer software for around $180.00 or so. Could a non expert
use vBulletin to set up a message board? I know how to buy a url and buy
server space on godaddy. I use to have my own basic html web page for a
year or so.

Thanks!


Why not a Yahoo group? Been active on one for a number of years,
serving the broadband community of the town of Harvard, MA... Ben Myers

Try boards2go.com if you don't mind a banner ad at the top of your
board...that's how they keep it free. Very simple layout so it's easy
for people to understand how it works. Easy to set up. As
administrator of the message board, you can delete and/or edit
anyone's posts. I've used them for many years for a community message
board and haven't had much downtime or other problems.




On Jan 6, 4:11 pm, "Von Fourche" wrote:
How hard or easy is it to create your own message board? I would like
to make one so people
can talk religion on. I want the ability to moderate to keep it clean. I
was looking at the vBulletin
site and they offer software for around $180.00 or so. Could a non expert
use vBulletin to set up a message board? I know how to buy a url and buy
server space on godaddy. I use to have my own basic html web page for a
year or so.

Thanks!