Options For Starting My Own Forum

[Jodi-86]

I was a member / moderator of a forum that was on a hosted platform, the platform was taken over a few months ago by a big company.

Since then, the members didn't like having one plain theme, the setup was ok but would regularly be slow and pages take ages to load and then if you wanted to let the new hosting company know your forum was down you had to pay to submit a ticket. The database can't be transferred as the company won't give it or even sell it. The old hosting company used to allow database downloads for free but were so reliable that we never needed it or anticipated moving hosts.

So now i'm looking to start a forum, i've looked other online hosts, but most seem to have outdated software and support forums that haven't been posted on for over a year, the rest of the online hosts seem to have been taking over by the same big company.

What i need:

• Forum.
• 2 or 3 themes that work on a phone as well as a pc. (ideally that can have a few colours edited)
• a custom domain.

Not looking for any fancy Facebook plugins etc, but would be nice to have the ability to in future add a few of the add on mods that you have listed on here, members will probably be about 10 regulars to start with and then eventually 30 or 40, originally we had over 100 but most of them have said that after losing nearly 10 years of posts that they probably won't bother again.

Can anyone tell me what i would need or what options there are available for me to get this sort of thing up and running? and what monthly costs would be involved?

I've tried doing some research online but different sites had information that was very different, especially with bandwidth.

Sorry if i have posted in the wrong section.

[KevC]

We cannot really recommend a host, but we do recommend that you visit WebHostingTalk.

Basically buying a domain name and some simple hosting will only cost you £50 a year. Upload the files from here and away you go.

[Jodi-86]

Thanks for the reply KevC

Would i need to learn anything about MYSQL first?
What scares me is the thought of starting it off and then after a month getting a problem that i can't fix.

[Ger]

For the most part it's enough if you know how to create a database from your hosting panel, add a user and copy the credentials.

[KevC]

You don't need to know any coding at all.

Your host control panel should have a MySQL manager and database manager wizard that will walk you through creating the database and account for the board. Then the information you add in there (name, username, password) will be used on the installation page of phpBB.

[Jodi-86]

Thanks to you both for your replies
I always assumed the original forum was on a hosted set up because it was hard to run, but it sounds like once the setup is done it should be straight forward,

Could anyone suggest a free hosting site that i can try a test forum on? (pm if better) doesn't matter if it's got ads on as it's just so i can get an idea of how to do the installation.

Also the old forum before the big company took over, when i typed a post or a reply and hit submit - it would have a little information box that said "your message has been posted" before returning to the topic, the big company version didn't which resulted in double postings when it took a while to load. is this something i would need to add? or is it there as standard?

[KevC]

You can do it on your own computer

Installing and Setting Up Your Own Web Server

The message after posting is standard.

[Jodi-86]

You can do it on your own computer
Installing and Setting Up Your Own Web Server

Thanks for this, I've had fun installing styles, extensions and figuring how to set them up

The message after posting is standard.

I haven't seen a "your message has been posted" notice on the test forum that i set up, i don't think i've seen them on this forum either,
I have a feeling that it was an add on for the older versions, but it's not really a problem as it only stayed up for about 5 seconds.

I have 3 final well hopefully final questions,

1 - I've been through the styles and extensions for 3.2, i want my forum to have approx 19 extensions and 8 styles, would this have a big impact on bandwidth or speed ?

2 - Has anyone heard of Krystal Hosting? https://krystal.co.uk/cloud-hosting/clo ... g-features
I haven't got a clue what all the specs mean on their list, i/e what a 256 bit SSL certificate is, or 20 mysql databases - i thought i only needed 1, but in terms of security they have ex MOD/Police staff, 3 metre concrete walls and 2m barbed wire fences (i just need something that works and won't place ads over the forum)

3 - There is an extension for Google Analytics, would this make the forum show up in google better ?

Thanks again for the help

[david63]

want my forum to have approx 19 extensions and 8 styles, would this have a big impact on bandwidth or speed ?

The styles would not make much, if any, difference with bandwidth/speed as a user only uses one. There may be a bit of extra overhead in that there will be more caching to be done, but that will be negligible.

I would advise against having so many different styles as you may find problems with some of the styles not working correctly when you do an update if the style author does not update the style. Personally I would not have more than two or three.

As for the extensions - it all depends on which extensions you intend installing, but in general I cannot say that I have noticed any serious affect on bandwidth/speed with extensions - yes there will be a minor speed impact with some extensions because they are doing more processing.

There is an extension for Google Analytics, would this make the forum show up in google better ?

Not in itself - it is intended to monitor traffic to your site and provide statistics on that traffic, but knowing Google it may possibly have some minor affect. There is only one sure fire way to get your site to show up in Google and that is to get plenty of relevant content.

[Jodi-86]

Hey David,
Good point about the styles, i had assumed it would be about a year before updates were available,
Can i just remove the styles at a later date if they author doesn't update them?

The extension are:

(topicdescription) Topic Description
(vse_topicpreview_2.2.4) Topic Preview - With Avatars Turned Off
(vse_dbtool_1.1.2) DB Database Tool
(vse_lightbox_1.0.5) Lightbox - With Max Image Width Set To 300px
(adduser) Add User Via ACP
(shareon_2.0.1) Share On - Set To Twitter & Facebook Only
(phpbb_mediaembed_1.0.1) Media Embed For Videos
(phpbb_collapsiblecategories_1.0.2) Collapsible Categories
(paypaldonation_v103) Donation Button Towards Hosting / Domain
(elonw) External Links Open In New Window
(customregistrationagreement) Custom Registration Agreement
(footerlinks) Footer Links
(sfpo) Show First Post Only To Guests
(phpbb_boardrules_2.1.1) Board Rules
(phpbb_pages_2.0.2) Pages
(phpbb_ads_1.0.3) PhPBB Ads - Advertising Management
(youtubegallery_v103) - YouTube Gallery
(phpbb_boardannouncements_1.0.6)
(phpbb_googleanalytics_1.0.3) - but this one can be crossed off as it sounds like it's not a vital add on.

[Elias]

Hey David,
Good point about the styles, i had assumed it would be about a year before updates were available,
Can i just remove the styles at a later date if they author doesn't update them?

Yes.
You can remove them at any time.