Having played with the script for a few weeks, I can tell you that Vanilla offers a great and unique forum package for your website.  A few weeks ago, I set it up for the forums I added to Firefox Facts and I really could not be happier with it.  It seems to almost do everything that I need, plus it keeps things really straight to the point.  Vanilla might be the best forum script for people who don’t want their forums to look like the next guy’s.

The Vanilla forums script it open-source, standards-compliant, and totally customizable to suit your needs.  They also give you all the tools you need to migrate from other forum scripts, if needed too. 

Here is a little more about the Vanilla forum script, from the developers:

Vanilla is an open-source, pluggable, themable, multi-lingual community-building solution. It is specially made to help small communities grow larger through SEO mojo, totally customizable social tools, and great user experience. Vanilla is also built with integration at the forefront, so it can seamlessly integrate with your existing website, blog, or custom-built application.

Some other neat features include:

• Embed Vanilla – Allows you to simply embed your forum installation into a website, like you would a YouTube video.  Just copy and paste the embed code in on the page, and you are done.
• Social Connect – This feature lets users sign into your community forums with their favorite social network.  It has built in support for Facebook, Twitter, Google and OpenID.

Want to see my own install of Vanilla forums in action? Go check out support.firefoxfacts.com. Who knows? I might be adding forums to Mitchelaneous sometime soon too.

Overall I would say if you are looking for a really simple forum script to add a little more functionality to your website, Vanilla is the best way to go.  You can check it out, and download it for your own hosting account from VanillaForums.org.

Building and hosting successful forums on your website can be a lot of hard work.  Just like you would do if you were building a house, you have to build your forums with a good foundation.  Here I have for you seven different successful forum rules you should keep in mind when you either set up a forum script, or look to redo some of your forums to make them easier for users to navigate through.

Here is my general advice for anybody out there looking to start their own forums.

1. Enable Really Simple Syndication
   You want to give people as many routes into your forums as they need.  Making sure your forum has an RSS feed gives your users one more way to keep up to date on what is happening on your forums.
2. Use an SEO Friendly Permalink Structure
   You have to have a good permalink structure to keep the search engines happy, when they are crawling over your forums.  Use page paths like "this-works-great" rather than "index=conversation2".  By using a better permalink structure, you will get ranked a little higher in search results.
3. Only Make the Forums as Complex as You Need
   Do not go overboard adding a new forum category for every wild idea you think people might want to talk about.  Only create a new category or sub-forum if there is a real need or desire for it coming from the people who use your forums.
4. Find Good People to Help You Moderate Conversations
   Once your forums have been up and running for a while, you might look towards the community you have created for people who will help you enforce the forum rules, and keep the forums active.
5. Set Some Basic Rules for Posting
   From day one, you should have a basic list of rules for people to follow.  My best advice for this situation is to keep this list somewhere where everybody can see it, and keep it simple.  If you get too complex with your rules, nobody will read them.
6. Help Feed the Discussions
   Stop in daily and see what conversations you can reply to, and try to find topics of discussion that might get more people to come by and post their thoughts, ideas, feedback or solutions.
7. Link to Your Forums from Other Places
   You need to work hard at getting new links to your forums.  You can do this from your website (if you have one) and other like-minded websites that might share the same general discussion point of your forums.

Have another rule of your own that I might have missed?  Makes sure you leave a comment and share it with the rest of us.  Learn to take care of your little community,  and make sure their needs are being met. Also, always welcome feedback, because if people care enough to complain – it means they want your forums to succeed.

If you are looking for a powerful content management system with tons of bells and whistles, Drupal might be in your future.  Equipped with tons of great features, it makes for the perfect way to get a CMS powered website up and running.

Drupal comes in handy when you need to develop a website that you can evolve in almost any direction.  Where a script like WordPress is pretty much best suited for blogging, Drupal is more suited for a site that has many features such as blogs, maybe a shopping cart, a wiki, a membership system and more.  It is also very easy to configure Drupal to interact with other websites or technologies out there too.

Right out of the box, Drupal comes ready to deliver forums, blogs, polls, image galleries and comments.  With a little creativity and skill, you can really develop a one of a kind website with this free open-source script.

You really get the best of both world with this awesome CMS.  You get the sophisticated programming backend for developers, and a really basic website installation and administration process for those who just want to run a website.

Overall, if you need an all-in-one content management system to organize your website with, Drupal is the script you want.  It is flexible, widely supported, and is often overlooked.  You can learn more about Drupal over at drupal.org.

Popularity among the masses goes a long way these days to building a successful franchise.  One my my favorite new gaming franchises to follow the past six months or so has been Fat Princess.   This over the top capture the flag game with fat princess is tons of fun, and has an ever growing community.

Here are some of the best Fat Princess community sites out there today.

The PlayStation Forums for Fat Princess

This is obviously the biggest and most active community, because it is run by Sony themselves.  Here you can read about glitches, clans or just discuss your favorite way to rescue the fatty in distress.

The Throne Room

A great new set of forums, more focused toward giving visitors everything that the Sony-run forums do not. You have more specific content and categories here, geared towards the “clan” aspect of the Fat Princess game and a lot of other topics to keep people coming back for more.

Fan Princess

One of the few blog-based fan web sites out there, Fan Princess seems to come back and die off a lot.  When it is up and running though, they do have a lot of interesting topics and discussions posted there.  If you are looking for more Fat Princess news-like content, this is the place to go.

The Cake Lair

Another new set of forums for that Fat Princess-loving community, The Cake Lair has tons of potential.  In the future, they hope to have more tutorials and talk about strategy, video tutorials on how to master all the various classes and a lot more.

That is all that I know of – do you know of any others?  If so, feel free to leave them in the comments.  Also, feel free to come play Fat Princess with me anytime, my PlaySation Network ID is cheasym.

A fast and lightweight PHP-powered set of forums, PunBB is a script you may not have heard much about but I can promise it is well worth looking into.  The goal of this script is to be faster, smaller and less graphically overpowering in comparison with other forum scripts out there.  That alone makes it a good option if you are on a shared web hosting account.

The requirements to get PunBB are fairly light too:

• A webserver (preferably Apache).
• PHP 4.1.0 or later (PHP 5 included).
• MySQL 3.23.17 or later, PostgreSQL 7.0 or later or SQLite.

To install, all you need to do is upload the script to the location you want it on your web hosting account, and then run the install.php from the forum’s root directory, then follow the on screen instructions.

One thing I don’t like is the fact that they have various versions of the script to download from the main page.  You have PunBB 1.3 and PunBB 1.2.  This is an annoyance for me with several scripts out there.  Personally I like just having one download link with the latest version right there in front of my face.

PunBB is also extendable.  After you install it, you can take your choice of which extensions you want.  They can do anything from giving you a CAPTCHA to register and post to adding poll-like features.

Give PunBB a shot.  Why?  Well, as they put it because less is really more.

Bonus -  be sure to check out our other free forum script reviews!

This forum script uses PHP and MySQL to run the backend, so that means that any shared hosting account should be able to host it.  Here are a few more features:

• Comprehensive template system.
• Advanced permission and user management.
• Supports multiple languages at once.
• Open and well-documented source code.
• Tracking of new and old unread topics, not just from your last visit.
• Designed for optimal performance and scalability.
• Multi-media output.

Here are a few screenshots of it in action.  First we have the administrator interface:

Next, we see how the forums would look after you have installed SMF:

If you are looking for support, there are many ways to ask for help.  You have the FAQs, the SMF community, or searching on your own via their web site.  They also have an online manual which has many of its features and other details documented.

First time users might want to check out how to Install SMF or check through the various converters, so you can go from another forum script (like phpBB, vBulletin, IPB, and others to SMF).

Simple Machines Forum is free to use, and easy to customize.  If you are searching for a forum script of your own, you should definitely give it a shot.

Bonus -  be sure to check out our other free forum script reviews!

Via a request I got via e-mail I recently posted a tutorial for Lunarpages on how to install bbPress onto your run-of-the-mill Linux-based hosting account.  I have to say, I had never used bbPress before till then, and I like it a lot.

For those of you who may not recognize the name, bbPress comes from the creators of WordPress.  As they make note of via their web site, “bbPress is focused on web standards, ease of use, ease of integration, and speed. We’re focused on keeping things as small and light as possible while still allowing for great add on features through our extensive plugin system.”  Think of it as WordPress for forums – but a little less popular than WordPress is today.

You have plugins and themes there too, so you can customize the forums as much or as little as you like.  Personally, I kind of liked them how they were via the default install. I am sure though I’d want to add something eventually though, so nice to know the option is there.

If you want to try out the back end and front end demos, head over to OpenSourceCMS.com.  They have a working demo of both up for you to tinker with and see if you like it or not.  Those who have used WordPress before will be greated with a very familiar interface.  You can download bbPress or get more information at bbPress.org.

Bonus -  be sure to check out our other free forum script reviews!

Facebook Fan Page Come join the fun on the Mitchelaneous Facebook Fan Page!

© Mitch Keeler 2011 | Check out my firefox help site and my hosting podcast too!

  ]]> http://www.mitchelaneous.com/2008/12/17/nice-and-easy-forum-setup-with-bbpress/feed/ 0 http://www.mitchelaneous.com/2007/01/12/webhostingtalk-forum-premium-membership/ http://www.mitchelaneous.com/2007/01/12/webhostingtalk-forum-premium-membership/#comments Fri, 12 Jan 2007 10:00:18 +0000 Mitch http://64.38.8.130/~mitchela/?p=917 Would you pay $50 a year to get the “privilege” to post on some forums?

I would like to say the folks at Web Hosting Talk are pretty darn bonkers, but they have people actually paying for it. I can’t blame them because if people were willing to give me money for the same thing – I might have to do it. Do Web hosting people really have that much money to burn? People there are other Web hosting forums out there! Need a list of them?

Go check out HostingHoopla.com!

Come on, give me some feedback – are people really that desperate for a t-shirt or are they just not aware that there are better hosting forums out there? Is Web Hosting Talk desperate for money?

I know they have been resold on a few occasions but they seem popular – why do they need to stick it to their members without giving much more of a perk than just a free t-shirt?

Also, have you invested any time in using social bookmarking Web sites for free press? You should – and I’ll get you started right here on episode 91 of the Web Hosting Show.

Web Hosting Topics Covered on this Episode:

+ Hosting Hoopla is Back as a Link Directory
+ How to Deal with Annoying Forum Members
+ HostingForum.ca Gets My Pick of the Week
+ Social Bookmarking Can Lead to Lots of Free Press
+ GoDaddy Wants to Sponsor This Podcast? My Controversial Answer!

[ Listen to the Web Hosting Show - Episode 91! ]

I want Hosting Hoopla to the like an appendix to the Web hosting industry. I don’t mean that organ that you don’t really mean, I mean an appendix like that thing you find in the back of the book. Instead of having dozens of hosting related Web sites bookmarked – just bookmark Hosting Hoopla and you will have them all in one place.

Drag and drop Hosting Hoopla into your favorites, and it will be the one bookmark you need to get you through your Web hosting related links. I like making things simpler for folks, and this one is brain dead easy. Of course, that is where you come into the picture. If you are going to be using it – I want to make sure you are getting the links that you need. If you have any suggestions to make, I have added a nice shinny button for you to click at the top of the Web page to submit your own favorite hosting links.

Over time the Web site might become more segregated, once the links list gets too big for one Web page to hold. I am ready to take any and all suggestions on this project though, because it is not only for me to use – it is for you to use as well. Tell me what you want to see here and I will do my best to get it added on.

Hosting Hoopla is back, and I have a feeling it will be better than ever as 2007 is right at our doorstep.