New question - how hard is it to set up a BBS like Anand's?

[XMan]

I frequent another board from time to time . . . it's a Phoenix Suns website run by the Arizona Republic. Nice interface, nothing anywhere close to UBB or FuseTalk, but the basketball discussion is ruined by one poster . . . let's just he's the GUTB/Nick Caputo of Phoenix Suns basketball . . . he's almost exactly the way GUTB was with AMD with the Suns . . . so anyways, the mods on this board are pretty pathetic, so the dork will post literally dozens of threads a la a nef.

So without moderation, what's the best way to handle a moron like this?

EDIT

I've been giving it some thought, and I've wondered how difficult it would be to set up my own BBS. Most ISPs provide you with space to make your own web page, correct? And this bulletin board would only be supporting 10-20 people at the most. Could I get away with using a demo copy of UBB, perhaps? It might be an interesting project at the very least, eh? Any information or experiences you guys may have would be helpful.

 

[XMan]

We've tried the flaming thing, which doesn't effect him much. I think he's one of those guys that gets off on it or something. The crazy thing is, the mod will delete his handles, but he'll just create another one. He worked his way through the 1950s Cleveland Indians this last month . . .

 

[Shuxclams]

<< Give him crap every chance you get. >>



Sound familiar NEF-son?






SHUX

 

[Mday]

call 'em all paulson...

 

[etech]

Ignore the little nef until you can't stand it or another one of his insanely inane posts. Flame the crap out of him for a few posts, then put him back on mental ignore where he belongs.

Works for me most of the time.

 

[XMan]

Bump for my new question . . .

 

[piku]

Your going to need cgi-bin access, something which most isp's wont give you with the free webspace.

 

[XMan]

Could I serve the software off of one of my computers at home and avoid using my ISP's webspace?

 

[64bitloopy]

You can get free web space that supports what you need. If you go with a PHP based software, you can get free hosting through prohosting, and the like.

 

[XMan]

64bit, could you give me some more information?

What's PHP?

 

[64bitloopy]

PHP is a server-side, cross-platform, HTML embedded scripting language, that works really well with my sql. The nice thing is that both are absolutely free. There are several forum packages on the market that use this combo to provide a very stable forum.
You could also look at fusetalk, which uses cold fusion, but you'd have to find a host that supports cold fusion.
I wouldn't recomend hosting a forum on your own machine, the busier it gets, the more bandwidth it will consume.

 

[DAM]

there are a couple of ppl here who have their own forums. damn i cant think of who they are right off the top of my head. but i think like, gamedreams.com or joshthebaptist.com they are AT members, ask crysla or hzl they will know.





best of luck XM




dam()

 

[XMan]

64bit, one more quesion and I'll leave you alone, promise.

You said there are several PHP forum packages on the markets . . . they are?

Are they any with freeware/demo versions? I'm searching Yahoo right now as I ask you, so don't get mad at me.

 

[64bitloopy]

Thirdkind has a fusetalk site over at codebloat.com, and I think it is Mr. t that has one at www.gamingdreams.com, but I think his is kind of screwed up, I just went over there and got a error. kabelogo has one at joshthebaptist.com/forums, and I think there are a few more, sorry if I left your name out.

It's really quite easy to set one up. The hard part from what I have seen with the other sites is building membership. They are all relatively small.
Oh, and there is a pretty much abandoned fusetalk forum at abgh.com or abhg.com, something like that.

 

[64bitloopy]

You can go to vbulletin.com, they offer a free demo that you can use and play with. i forget the others.

 

[DAM]

doh! thanks 64bit how could i have forgotten TK and codebloat, nice site too. shameless plug for TK who i have not seen in a while.





dam(codebloat)

 

[64bitloopy]

He's in #neochat once in a while.

 

[RSI]

It's hard if you've never done it before. I have one as well, check it out at marc.unrealpc.net.

 

[XMan]

64bit, thanks for all of your help.

How much web space should I look for in a free-hosting site? I found a place that reviews and categorizes the free webservice places, but I'm not sure how much space I'll need.

Once I download vBulletin, how do I get it to the web server?

I'm sorry for all of the questions, but I am pretty much a moron with this kind of stuff - hopefully this will teach me how to do it!!!

 

[XMan]

Also, prohosting doesn't seem to be free?

 

[64bitloopy]

Once you download it, it's instructions are fairly easy to follow.

The key concern with a forum isn't really how much space you get, it is how much traffic you receive. Since mosts hosting services only allow so much traffic, that is your only limiting factor.

Do be aware though, in order to use vbulletin, you need to have mysql set up on the server, and have a database ready for it.
With ubb you just need to set up all the directories and paths accordingly, and I think with fusetalk, you need a little bit of smoke and mirrors.

 

[64bitloopy]

try free.prohosting.com
they offer cgi support, but i was wrong, they do not offer free php support. If you go to the forums on the vbulletin page, I'm sure they can lead you to a free server that does support it.

 

[XMan]

And yet another stupid question from Xerox Man . . . boy, I'm just an idiot today, huh?

vBulletin uses SQL to be configured, can I use the SQL in Access 2000 to do this? I don't have MySQL.

AH, excellent! So if I go with UBB, I don't need to have MySQL?

Feel free to backhand me if I get annoying at any time . . .

 

[64bitloopy]

MySql can be downloaded from the internet, it is free. Your only true concern with it will be having a database ready. For that, you would need some sort of interface with the server through telnet or a front end like phpadmin, or the like.

 

[XMan]

Okay, looks like the Prohosting (50 Megs of space, plus CGI scripts) and the UBB is the way to go. I may just try the free ware out and end up buying a license if this works out well!

Anything else I need to know?