How to start a forum like this

[TerrierTude]

I belong to a Facebook discussion group, but we've become increasingly concerned about privacy and Facebook's general skeeviness.

I love the way this forum is set up, how you can see all the available threads and create discussion categories.

What is the platform this forum is built on? How easy is it for non-techy people to set up such a forum and maintain it?

Or is there an easier equivalent that would still be as secure?

thanks in advance.

[Bruceper]

Your easy equivalent would be a hosted version of vbulletin which can be found at https://www.vbulletin.com/en/vbulletin-cloud/

vbulletin is the best forum software available. I've used it for years. There are literally thousands of things you can change if you want to, or keep it simple and use the menu's provided.

[mumkin]

Forums and discussion groups have been around for years... and Facebook has pretty much killed them off..

I've always preferred them because you don't have all the threads disappearing forever into the bowels of FB in a day or two... and have all the discussion easily searchable.

I would expect that the owner of this forum would even consider adding a section for EGHNA owners who might consider moving over here from Facebook. Although the discussions here are public, while posting is restricted to members.

[gregmchugh]

But on traditional forums everything is just words (at least it was until they started letting you add pictures, static emoticons, and now those dreadful animated thingies). You can’t even put your original post in big bold or fancy fonts with a colorful background to make it appear that your inane post is more than it really is. If I see one more super sized “Thank You For Accepting Me Into Your Group” post, I will gag...

Old Fart Rant completed...

[Davydd]

Originally Posted by gregmchugh

But on traditional forums everything is just words (at least it was until they started letting you add pictures, static emoticons, and now those dreadful animated thingies). You can’t even put your original post in big bold or fancy fonts with a colorful background to make it appear that your inane post is more than it really is. If I see one more super sized “Thank You For Accepting Me Into Your Group” post, I will gag...

Old Fart Rant completed...

Those animated thingies are called giphies (gifs) and I won’t allow them in my Facebook group. I have 25,000 members with a weekly partipation rate of about 2/3rds of the members visiting. That’s just for a single obscure sandwich sold mostly in the Midwest with about 20 photo post per day. I doubt an independent forum could do that. But that’s peanuts. Some Facebook groups have over a million members.

As for independent forums go the biggest Class B forum at one time was on RV dot net and now they sometimes go a week without a post.

[Janet H]

Originally Posted by Davydd

Those animated thingies are called giphies (gifs) and I won’t allow them in my Facebook group. I have 25,000 members with a weekly partipation rate of about 2/3rds of the members visiting. That’s just for a single obscure sandwich sold mostly in the Midwest with about 20 photo post per day. I doubt an independent forum could do that. But that’s peanuts. Some Facebook groups have over a million members.

As for independent forums go the biggest Class B forum at one time was on RV dot net and now they sometimes go a week without a post.

I think balance is the key to a good board. We also limit animations a little although not entirely... But having images posted by members is important - they are a great resource for others. Facebook is hard to search and as an archive of info for how to fix or maintain a rig it's not very useful imo.

And now an animated moment ...

[Bruceper]

You can do whatever you want on vBulletin, depending on if the forum owner permits it. Annoying graphics, inserting HTML and annoying text sizes typically are not allowed because those things are annoying to everyone.

Forums offer a better search system, diverse and varied layouts, a better archive system and better search results than facebook while maintaining actual control over content.

Yes facebook makes it easy to create a large group because it is a single site where a forum is individual and may not permit facebook or google user integration. This also helps to reduce spam when you combine it with a few forum features that prevent spam.

In the end, facebook is about numbers, forums are about customization and control.