v bulliten

[greenoak]

im thinking about buying a vbulliten forum .....i wouldnt be doing the tekk work!!!lol...but is it real hard? and is the cost under 500$$?
any big issues i should think about? i wouldnt need anything any more complicated than this...
my dil and dh did our site and can follow directions etc and they are both very tekky........and i dont really care about search engines...it will be a private forum...
im picking this one since you have picked it for here....kind of using your great knowledge and judgement!!!
thanks ann

[cbscreative]

I'll let vangogh respond to the back end and setup issues since he did the grunt work for that here. But from an admin perspective once it's set up, I have no complaints. All the tasks we need to do are easy. I would also venture to say the database is well designed. The fact that many forums use vB will also help verify that it is a system of choice for many forum owners.

[vangogh]

Ann before running out and buying vBulletin think about what you need from a forum and how large you expect the community to grow. The reason I say this is because there are some very good free forums. Part of my reason for choosing vBulletin is we were using it on the old forum and I wanted the transition to be as easy as possible for everyone.

Here's the vBulletin site (http://www.vbulletin.com/). They've actually changed some things since I bought the software here. You'd likely want the forums software and not the publishing package. It now costs $195 for a license. It used to be that you would then pay about $40 a year for upgrades, but I think they may have changed the business model some. I think now they will continue to give you upgrades and support for your version (4 is the current version), but when the next version comes out (version 5) you'd need to buy it again. So it's conceivable you'll need to spend money each year. My guess is you won't have to pay the full $195 every time though.

I know you said you don't care about seo but I'm going to mention it anyway for anyone else reading. vBSEO (http://www.vbseo.com/) is seo for vBulletin and sets a lot of things automatically to help your forum rank better. It's possible that the new version of vBulletin now includes some of the things vBSEO adds. I'm not sure since I haven't looked into the new versions yet. I did buy both.

It is under $500 for both of them.

If you expect your community to grow you may also want better hosting. Forums hit the database a lot and other than very small communities I don't think shared hosting will cut it. I purchased space on a virtual private server (VPS) for us. Depending on where you go that could cost anywhere from $50 - $100 a month. In addition you also have to do a little more management of the server than you normally would do. The hosting company makes sure everything is working and they set things up initially for you. They also answer support calls. Just know there could be some things that fall on you. There are also companies you can hire to manage the server though that's another $100/month.

You probably won't need a VPS at first or maybe ever if the forum remains private, but it's something to consider.

Installing the software wasn't too hard from what I remember. Of course I do this for a living so not too hard is a relative term. I think it took about an hour or two to get the software working.

What took more time was setting things up. You have to set up the default sections and forum topics within each section, etc. None of it's hard, but you will need to get used to how vBulletin works. I did have plenty of experience prior to setting up here. Not hard, but there is a bit of a learning curve.

There are a lot of things on the admin side. None hard to set up, but many hard to know what they do at first. I would think anyone who could build a site will be able to figure it out. vBulletin has a support forum which you'll have access when buying the software. Anyone can read the forum, but as a member you get to ask questions and they have extras you can download.

vBulletin was built a long time ago so it's not really up to date in how it's built. That may have changed in the newest version. One of the reasons we're still using the unexciting default theme here is because it's a lot of work to customize. More than I've been able to put in. That may not be an issue to you and there are free and paid themes you can add.

Actually I just looked quickly at the source code and it looks like it's had some serious updates. Might be enough to get me to spend the money to upgrade :) Ooh, it looks like i might be able to upgrade for free, and get support until the license expires.

One thing you may want to do before buying vBulletin is think about how much you really need from the software. vBulletin costs money because it has a lot of features, but you may not need all those features. Here are a few other forum applications that might work for you:

Simple Machine Forum (SMF) (http://www.simplemachines.org/)
Invasion Power Board (http://www.invisionpower.com/)
bbPress (http://bbpress.org/)

And here's a list with more information than you need from WikiPedia listing lots of forum applications (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Internet_forum_software_%28PHP%29)

I was pretty sure I would use vBulletin here, but even then I went out and registered at a few different forums that used different applications just to see what they looked like and what features they gave users.

Of the three forums I listed above, SMF and bbPress are free. bbPress is owned by the company that owns WordPress. It's not quite mature yet, but it's free and easy to work with and has a growing community around it to support it.

Invasion Board offers something you may like. They'll host the forum for you for for a hosting fee each month. How much depends on how many users you expect to have. If you're going to keep membership small it might pay to let them do all the work for you, but if you expect the forum to grow it'll probably make more sense to host it yourself somewhere.

Probably more information than you needed. Hope I didn't confuse you more. I'm happy to answer more questions if you have any. I did choose vBulletin last year because I thought it had more features than any of the others. The new version looks like they've really improved things too. I wish I could tell you more about it, but I haven't used it yet. As a WordPress developer I'm also excited about the future of bbPress.

[greenoak]

thanks a lot vg..im going to print this off ....i had looked at the vbulliten site.... ..but i hadnt considered the monthly hosting money...
.. i would think it might grow to maybe 50 members at the most, probably fewer....... maybe about like here...
this forum seems pretty clear and simple... which is what i would like....
...if i didnt need the extra hositing expenditure i would be ok with the fees...
i will look at the other sites...thanks...ann...

[Evan]

I'd recommend against the VPS if you think only 50 or so will be members or active. It'd be a bit overkill for the short-term. The cost for shared hosting would be minimal, and there are some pretty "inexpensive" solutions. Just before you buy, make sure the company is reputable. It seems every day there is somebody else selling web hosting for a few quick bucks. Look for a company that's been in the business for awhile.

Do explore the free message board options. I used Invision before, and thought it was pretty good. PhpBB was also pretty back in the day, though I haven't used it in ages, so I can't attest to it within the past 5 years. This is also free.

Good luck...

[Evan]

And for some credentials on this -- I used to do website development and stuff "back in the day". I had also moderated and administrated a few forums awhile back too...

Now I am moderator/administrator-free... Just putting up my feet and kicking-back as a member!

Ahh... now where's that virtual cocktail?

[vangogh]

Yeah a VPS would definitely be overkill for 50 members. The hosted solution might be the way to go Ann, though do check the costs. Paying monthly does add up. It might be worth the savings in time managing the forum software though.

[greenoak]

thanks....but im not following....there arent 50 active people on here...so i dont quite get how its overkill...and that i should go for something smaller.....also i have faith in this ...vbulliten....because i can see it here and i like using your judgement..you have vetted vbulliten for me.... .
im not up to choosing the right free or repututable or cheaper site....im not qualified, not famililar...etc etc...
which are you saying? that vbulliten is harder to run than the cheap or free ones OR that im paying too much?
i am kind of concerned about a 50$ monthly fee tho....
thanks...

[greenoak]

dhis on a phpbb forum..leonardcohenforum.com • View topic - Sleeping with Leonard (http://www.leonardcohenforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=20261..and) says it runs great.... any ideas on this? have you heard of it? he might be helping ,so having one he is familiar with might be real good...
i guess im asking if this one would be harder or easier to run? or about the same?
thanks

[cbscreative]

Ann, I think you're confusing the cost of vB with the cost of hosting. The $50 per month is what you can expect for VPS, which I agree is overkill for 50 members.

Although you stated that we have about 50 here, that would only include the "really" active mebers, the ones who post enough that we all know each other. Even that may be above 50. Our forum software classifies 167 members as "active" right now.

There is another factor to consider in our case. We have a lot of lurkers and a ton of drive-by's (some spammers). Every visitor, whether quickly checking us from a search engine inquiry, spamming us, lurking, or an active member, they all use bandwidth and drain energy from the database. Because of this, VPS was the best choice for us so the level of activity would not slow the forum down to a crawl.

If all you expect is 50 members, and it will be "private" to only registered members, you eliminate a lot of the demands, and regular $5 to $7 a month hosting should suffice. As has alreeady been mentioned, go with a reputable hosting company. There are certainly a lot of pretenders out there in the hosting biz.

[Patrysha]

I just have a free one (phpBB) on my regular hosting...it's low membership and low traffic, but it works for what I need it for right now. I might switch if it ever got real traffic...but it works for now.

[greenoak]

thanks steve,...i hear what you are saying...now its clearer ...
. i did realize the hosting was seperate....
patrysha.sounds like the php bb would be about right for us.....glad to hear you are happy with it.....and i sure like the looks of it on the leonard cohen forum....
is it hard to run? my dil and dh are pretty advanced....but i hope im not asking them for hours every week after its up and going...thanks....ann

[billbenson]

How locked in are you with a particular forum software. Would it be reasonably easy to migrate from one to another or are you pretty locked in?

[greenoak]

im not comitted to anything....just starting.......i want to send my people to the right one...but one that doesnt get panned on here....
im understanding that the vbulletin is more than i need.... who knows if it will even get the 50 mambers....thats my hope...
.dh likes the leonard cohen forum....phpbb....
so if it doesnt get a bad report from here...thats my new favorite...
ann
ann...

[Patrysha]

I am not too techy. I mean I know some stuff, but mostly I just learn by trial and error with anything.

It was easy for me to set up and it's done what I need it to. It's at Patrysha's Marketing Club • Index page (http://www.everlastingprplan.com/forum)

[billbenson]

Actually, I was pointing that question at the Steve's, Ann. Depending on how the databases are set up it could be easy or a nightmare to change software down the road. I've never set up a forum, so I was curious how stuck you would be if you went to a free forum for now, but might want to upgrade later.

[greenoak]

oh good...i thought, boy i dont get that question.....i must really be missing something....
sounds good patrysha..
ann...

[cbscreative]

Actually, I was pointing that question at the Steve's, Ann.

I'll turn that question over to vangogh since he's the one with real experience. When we started this forum, I emailed him with the idea because of the fiasco going on with the old SBF at the time, but he just ran with it and my involvement was much more limited.

[Evan]

How locked in are you with a particular forum software. Would it be reasonably easy to migrate from one to another or are you pretty locked in?

Many of these programs include a converter if you are coming from another reputable forum.

So to switch from vB to say phpBB would probably be easier than from some unknown company to phpBB or vB, or the opposite way.

The "big" guys will always develop a way to convert from a competitor to use their program.

[greenoak]

steve, do you think the phpbb forum sounds about right for us? have you heard anything against it? thanks....ann

[vangogh]

Bill some software will make it easy for you to migrate databases. For example say SMF really wanted to take market share away from vBulletin. They might add something to their software to make it easy to import a database from vBulletin. If the makers of the forum don't create that ability then someone could easily contribute that functionality on their own.

Assuming nothing exists you can export your database however you want and work to convert it into something that could be used in different forum software. I'm not sure how easy or hard it is from one specific forum application to another, but it's definitely something that can be done.

Ann in years past I had heard that phpBB wasn't the most secure forum software or at least to keep it secure you had to pay attention to when a patch was released for the software and make sure to upgrade. I have no idea if that was really true though. It could have been the usual rants against any open source product and it could have been something true in the past, but not anymore with recent versions of phpBB. I think their last major version was a big step up from previous versions.

I do know a lot of people use it, but not having used it myself I don't really know much about it.

[KristineS]

We used PHPbb for a forum our company built a while back. My tech guys said it was easy to use and customize and it had good administrator tools. The hard part was getting the forum to grow and getting people to use it. If you have a built in audience, you might be able to avoid problems in that area.

[greenoak]

thats encouraging kristine...thanks for sharing...
getting the posters is probably always the hard part....and where the marketing comes in.and the need for the idea....which i do think is there!!!!...altho i dont have a financial reason to do this....i want it more for feedback and as an educational resource.....i have a shoptalk blog with some constant readers.i hope they will jump on board too....
.im figuring i might have 5 or so dedicated posters to help get it going...and maybe a dozen more who i already know and might join in...
ann...

[yoyoyoyoyo]

get vbSEO :)

[KristineS]

The biggest problem with a forum is always getting it running and keeping new content flowing. I've seen dozens of forums that someone set up and then could not keep running so they just sit there and languish.

If you have people you are fairly certain will post regularly, and you're prepared to spend a lot of time there yourself, then give it a go. You should also keep in mind that managing a forum also includes policing it. You have to delete spam and discipline posters who get out of hand. So it does require a substantial time investment.

[greenoak]

update....we got our forum up about 2 weeks ago...and have about 20 members and over 100 posts..
im kind of thrilled and hopeful that it will really take...
.. we did the pb one...and like it seems to be fine.... thanks for telling me about it...and giving me the general background info ...
its private...for store owners only.... i really like it and am glad to have a place with other people facing the brick and mortar issues ....its www.retailersshoptalk.com
im trying to keep it moving but not dominate the posting...lol...
my daughter inlaw/webmistress did the tekk work....naturally i thought of a super and better name after the first week...dang!!!
ann

[KristineS]

Congratulations on getting forum up. Good for you! I hope it takes off like a rocket.

[vangogh]

Great to see your forum is up and running. It looks good from what I can see, though I realize most of the action is going on in private.

Bummer about the better name that came to you after. Isn't that always the way?

[Harold Mansfield]

Yay! How fun ! I don't know PB (I'm assuming PHPbb) , but I'm knee deep into VBulletin and of course VG is the King around here.

Feel free to post up any questions. I'm sure issues are the same and some functions may be similar.