forums?? choosing, adding or linking one to blog?? help please (12 posts)

Topic tags: tools
  • Profile picture of
    Captain
    Robin Carlisle said
    1 year, 4 months ago:

    I need to have a forum for my readers who will be English teachers and students, both USA and foreign.

    Recommendations? How-to’s? What do you use? Cost? Easy/hard to use?

    What are we using here? Pricey?

    Help, please. Students start again end of January. Trying to get blog and fourm up and ready by then.

    @atlantarobin | # | Top
  • Profile picture of
    Club Leader
    Kristi Hines said
    1 year, 4 months ago:

    @atlantarobin If you are used to WordPress, you might want to look into BuddyPress (http://buddypress.org/).  I believe that is what this forum uses.  The nice part is like WordPress, BuddyPress is free and has great documentation to get started (http://codex.buddypress.org/home/).

    There are lots of other forum platforms out there.  One I have tried is vBulletin.  It’s a bit pricey, and takes a lot of technical skill as far as installation and maintenance.  I still haven’t gotten my installation going.  :(

    @kristi-hines | # | Top
  • Profile picture of
    Captain
    Robin Carlisle said
    1 year, 4 months ago:

    Thanks for the link. Have to look at the cutoff where price beomes a factor, but for our overseas visitors it will work very well. I’ll start with that.
    @kristi-hines

    @atlantarobin | # | Top
  • Heather Wright-Porto
    Guide
    Heather Wright-Porto said
    1 year, 4 months ago:

    Hi Robin and Kristi :D @kristi-hines@atlantarobin 
    There are many free forums you can use, like this one:http://www.forumotion.com/You can then pay to have advertisements removed and it’s not expensive.

    many hosts have the option to add phpbb to your account. For example, if you have a domain with Go Daddy, you can add phpbb to your account and go from there.

    If using a wordpress blog, I’m sure there are other forum plugins as well that can reside right inside your wordpress site.  

    If you are running a membership site using WishList Member (another wordpress paid add-on) you can use Simple Press forum (http://simple-press.com/) as well and it will integrate with your “membership” site. 

    Hope this helps :D Heather :D

    @blogsbyheather | # | Top
  • Heather Wright-Porto
    Guide
    Heather Wright-Porto said
    1 year, 4 months ago:

    @kristi-hines

    If you have vBullletin, you can use http://www.URLJet.com do the installation (a one time flat fee) and host your vBulletin for $24.95 a month (US).  I had done this and begun the customization, but then my partner wanted to instead use a WordPress blog, Wishlist Member, and Simple-Press combination so she could help admin the site as it’s within WordPress (something she is familiar with as well, where if we stayed with vBulletin it would be all me to admin (which I didn’t mind at all), but she wanted to help when she could with the technical stuff…so we are doing with the wp/wishlist/simple-press combinations).

    Heather :D

    @blogsbyheather | # | Top
  • Profile picture of
    Captain
    Robin Carlisle said
    1 year, 4 months ago:

    @blogsbyheather

    Again, very helpful. Thanks, Ill check these out. Free is always a good price!

    @atlantarobin | # | Top
  • Profile picture of
    Club Leader
    Michael Stelzner said
    1 year, 4 months ago:

    @atlantarobin

    Robin,

    I have used PHPbb in the past with great success.

    I will be honest, the forum software for BuddyPress is not that sophisticated.  We had to have it highly customized to get it to this point.

    @mike-stelzner | # | Top
  • Profile picture of
    Captain
    Robin Carlisle said
    1 year, 4 months ago:

    @mike-stelzner

    Lol, Michael, like I said, free is always a good price. And for my students and coteachers overseas, hey, they have no heat, no bathrooms, no lunch, few books, no paper, and a couple pieces of chalk. Ingenuity is definitely the mother of their inventions there. So I’m hoping any money I must spend on the overseas part will be minimal.

    The best free option would make my heart sing. But I’ll still research all these suggestions in case we get a windfall and/or volunteer computer help. We had one such American volunteer computer genius in the area last year, but he’s now back in America, too late to help us with this now.

    @atlantarobin | # | Top
  • Profile picture of
    Club Leader
    Michael Stelzner said
    1 year, 4 months ago:

    @atlantarobin

    Then you should consider PHPbb (it is open source)

    @mike-stelzner | # | Top
  • Profile picture of
    Club Leader
    Kristi Hines said
    1 year, 4 months ago:

    @blogsbyheather Thanks for the resource… maybe I’ll just host the forum with them then for the free install and upgrades!  :)

    @kristi-hines | # | Top
  • Heather Wright-Porto
    Guide
    Heather Wright-Porto said
    1 year, 4 months ago:

    Hi again!One more note to the group using vBulletin is that http://www.URLJet.com is affordable but their support was really great! They answered quickly :D @kristi-hines 

    @blogsbyheather | # | Top
  • Profile picture of
    Captain
    Robin Carlisle said
    1 year, 4 months ago:

    @mike-stelzner

    I’ll be sure to look at PHPbb then. Thanks.

    @atlantarobin | # | Top

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