Can anyone explain to me the procedure of creating and hosting a forum?

[AnitaPeterson]

Hi there,

I want to help some friends - who have an NGO - create and maintain a forum on their website.

I asked a few quetions a while back, and I was strongly recommended to use phbb for the forum "engine"... but now I have some more practical questions.

Once yoy download the phbb software, then what? How does one install and maintain a forum - is it any different than using a website ? Does it need special hosting? Obviosuly, it will need moderators and all.. but I'm concerned about the actual process of putting it up (as in a "turnkey" solution)

As you can see, my ignorance is great - and my friends are even more helpless than I am - so please be as detailed as possible (and if you find documents on the web, explaining the process in detail, please post a link)

Thanks a lot.

 

[akubi]

RTFM

 

[mzkhadir]

Google and searching is your friend.

Search it and you will see.

 

[Martin]

I'll give the essence of running any php based app (be it a forum, portal, gallery or store).

1. get webhosting. starts at about $10/month. The web host has to offer PHP and MySQL and preferably have SSH access.
2. get all the web hosting info (ftp addresses, passwords etc). Download the software, put it in its own directory on the webserver, then read the readme.txt for installation instructions (usualy they require you to go to a page named install.php, which will ask you for some configuration settings, ie, mysql host name, user, password, etc).
3. enjoy

some places offer preconfigured forums, portals and such..but those cost more than they should.

 

[Pepsi90919]

starts at about $10/month

cheaper

 

[AnitaPeterson]

akubi and mkzhadir - DIAF, y'all... No wonder you have such high post counts, regardless of your true participation. People like you piss me off.

Thanks, Martin... so then, even if they have a running website, they still have to pay extra in order to have a forum ? That's not exactly good news... especially since their NGO is not exactly rich, and they're based in Italy. Not a lot of cash flowing around there.

How about free forum hosting services? Anyone have any ideas/experience with them?

 

[NikPreviousAcct]

http://www.webhostingtalk.com

 

[TallBill]

Make sucky forums.
Create stupid categories to look cool.
5 friends post like crazy on the forums so it looks semi-active.
Forums fail completely.
Give up and come back to a real message board.

 

[darkamulets]

If the current site they have can support PHP & SQL or give you shell access to setup those two process then you can use the same server.

 

[Allanv]

try a snitz forum most websites / hosts will accept access as a backend and its free

www.snitz.com

to install you will need to read the readme files but realy its a case of uploading all the files supplied to a dir on your host including a access DB be sure to rename this once up or beforehand, then there is a config file i forget its name that will need to be edited to reflect the ned DB name and username pass of the admin

its not hard nor is phpbb but if you ned help ask

regards

Allanv

 

[Martin]

Originally posted by: AnitaPeterson
akubi and mkzhadir - DIAF, y'all... No wonder you have such high post counts, regardless of your true participation. People like you piss me off.

Thanks, Martin... so then, even if they have a running website, they still have to pay extra in order to have a forum ? That's not exactly good news... especially since their NGO is not exactly rich, and they're based in Italy. Not a lot of cash flowing around there.

How about free forum hosting services? Anyone have any ideas/experience with them?

depends on what they run right now. as darkamulets said, if they already have PHP and MySQL, they don't need anything else...

the good thing about PHP is that there is a lot of free (open soruce) software. For forums there is phpBB, there is PHPNuke for portal like sites (like slashdot). They also have webstores (osCommerce) and photo gallery (Coppermine) software. All these are pretty sophisticated and compeltely free...

 

[Mo0o]

Originally posted by: TallBill
Make sucky forums.
Create stupid categories to look cool.
5 friends post like crazy on the forums so it looks semi-active.
Forums fail completely.
Give up and come back to a real message board.

 

[RossMAN]

AnitaPeterson,

Could you and your friends afford USD $45/yr if it includes:

• Domain registration
• Web hosting with storage, email, FTP, all the necessary components to successfully install and run a forum
• Automated software so you can automatically install a forum in about 30 seconds?

 

[Accipiter22]

Originally posted by: Martin
I'll give the essence of running any php based app (be it a forum, portal, gallery or store).

1. get webhosting. starts at about $10/month. The web host has to offer PHP and MySQL and preferably have SSH access.
2. get all the web hosting info (ftp addresses, passwords etc). Download the software, put it in its own directory on the webserver, then read the readme.txt for installation instructions (usualy they require you to go to a page named install.php, which will ask you for some configuration settings, ie, mysql host name, user, password, etc).
3. enjoy

some places offer preconfigured forums, portals and such..but those cost more than they should.

4.?
5. Profit

 

[DeviousTrap]

Originally posted by: RossMAN
AnitaPeterson,

Could you and your friends afford USD $45/yr if it includes:

• Domain registration
• Web hosting with storage, email, FTP, all the necessary components to successfully install and run a forum
• Automated software so you can automatically install a forum in about 30 seconds?

Or you could try the same exact thing for free (with the exception of a domain).

 

[AnitaPeterson]

Thanks for the great responses, guys... I'm puting data together, and I'll give them the information afterwards, so if they decide if and how much they want to pay, they are good to go. But I'm sure they need as many info as possible, so that's why I have to make sure I understand all of these things myself, before I explain them...

 

[SVT Cobra]

Originally posted by: Martin
I'll give the essence of running any php based app (be it a forum, portal, gallery or store).

1. get webhosting. starts at about $10/month. The web host has to offer PHP and MySQL and preferably have SSH access.
2. get all the web hosting info (ftp addresses, passwords etc). Download the software, put it in its own directory on the webserver, then read the readme.txt for installation instructions (usualy they require you to go to a page named install.php, which will ask you for some configuration settings, ie, mysql host name, user, password, etc).
3. enjoy

some places offer preconfigured forums, portals and such..but those cost more than they should.

:thumbsup:

thats what I did when I first put forums up...read the readme.txt file

 

[RossMAN]

Originally posted by: AnitaPeterson
Thanks for the great responses, guys... I'm puting data together, and I'll give them the information afterwards, so if they decide if and how much they want to pay, they are good to go. But I'm sure they need as many info as possible, so that's why I have to make sure I understand all of these things myself, before I explain them...

Basically they need 3 things:

1) Domain
2) Web hosting with MySQL and PHP, which most web hosts offer.
Even the CHEAP web hosts offer this.
3) Forum software which is free.