Landing Gear

I would like to set up a website for my old high school classmates to keep in touch.

Ideally, this site would have:

1. A unique URL, e.g. seniorhigschool.com;
2. The ability of any member to start a thread;
3. The ability to post pictures within threads;
4. The ability to have member pictures along with names on each posting.

In fact, this could look a lot like the FT forums with the last two items changed.

Here's what I have already looked at and why I don't like it:
Is this a crazy idea? Beyond the cost of the domain main is the cost of running such a board so high as to make this project prohibitive?

Any ideas and suggestions will be much appreciated.

remyontheroad

Others will hopefully chime in with more concrete info, but I think it's actually a pretty straightforward task.

BBs are just programs that you implement on your webhost

I think that many hosts provide tools to help you get one started when you sign up.

If you don't feel comfortable tinkering with it yourself, you could go to a website like getafreelancer.com, where you can get a kid in Pakistan to set it up for you for $25 and it might or might not work on the first try.

Aviatrix

Some domain name hosting packages come with forum software as standard. Suggest you do a Google search using these criteria:

"Forum software" +"hosting package"

There is also some useful advice here:

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?p=4659115

So - what you basically need to do is register a domain name and set up hosting for it with a hosting company that offers forum software. Most hosting companies will register domains for you, though there is a view that it is better to register one's domain independently from one's hosting package.

AKDan

Typically you can set this up with any webhost that you wish, most will have the features and software to install it. Sometimes the host has automated software that will install/configure the message board/bulletin board software. The one that I can think of off the top of my head is 'Fantastico' which some hosts offer to automatically install the software, and then all you have to do is configure it from the board's admin panel. That way you don't have to deal with installing the files/setting permissions etc.

Also, most boards require a database, the most common type is MySQL. Any webhost should be able to provide that as part of standard features for a web hosting plan.

Do you expect this board to be very busy? Just a word of caution that some forums that are extremely busy can cause a heavy load on the server, which some webhosts don't like. A small forum for high school friends shouldn't be too bad however. Just something to think about.

I would agree with the view that Aviatrix mentioned, registering the domain seperately may be a good idea. The only reason I say that is that it reduces difficulty if you decide that you are unhappy with your webhost and want to switch companies. This way your domain is under your control and you can switch to a different host whenever you wish.

redburgundy

Take a look at boardhost.com

alanw

http://mashable.com/2007/08/19/online-forums/

gglave

>Any ideas and suggestions will be much appreciated

Take a look at yahoo groups.

As an administrator, you'll have to sign up for a yahoo account to use it - Other's don't.

My other tip - As a yahoo group admin I would force users to at least sign up for the 'daily digest' which is an email summary of group postings. This will drive traffic to the forum once people see threads that interest them.

If you'd like to see a sample, my group is here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vache_vancouver

Cheers,
Geoff Glave
Vancouver, Canada

cordelli

I would vote for proboards. www.proboards.com

They are free, do whatever you want, except the domain name thing, and any provider for $9 a year or so can handle that for you.

They do pictures, you can have avatars, threads, discussions, searching, etc.

Then just get the domain you want and forward it to the proboards address.

Their addresses are not impossible, it's

http://username.proboardsX.com

with username being the board name, and x being a number of the server you get set up on, but forwarding a domain for $9 a year is like nothing.

JadedTraveler

Bear in mind that the most valuable thing you have, once this gets going, is the content stored in the database. Be sure you have a means to regularly backup the entire database (include all postings and messages, the usernames, contact info for the users, etc. such that you can replicate the entire system on a different hosting site) and have the backups in your physical possession.

You want to do this in case the hosting provider goes belly-up, or is sold, or decides to hold your site hostage to price increases, or they just plain lose the data somehow. Don't believe the statements
'we back up your data so you don't have to ...'

Landing Gear

First, thank you all for the suggestions. Looks like a lot of research for me to do.

Next,

How would I back up website data?

ilohoflyer

The Yahoo Groups option sounds good, Google also has a nice groups section. Just a matter of personal preference I think.

BTW: With blogger, you can have more than one author. I'm not sure if they have a limit or not as to how many authors you can have, but we have about 10 on iloho.blogspot.com. Adding authors is in Settings under Permissions.

Good Luck!

Katja

Depends on what you wind up using. If, for example, the application you choose uses a MySQL database, there is a procedure to log into a adminstrative control panel for your database, and create a backup file. Put this file in a safe place, and do it regularly.

Some applications come with utilities to easily backup your database without interacting with it directly. There are also ways to set up a backup to occur on a regular basis automatically. That's about as technical as I'm going to get without knowing what host, application and database backend we'd be talking about.