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The Good Forum Guide
How the real web masters can run good forums

On the internet, there are too many of these. There are just too many forums, which without the effort and work being put in have just be left to rot, or have been covered with so many scripts and add ons it loads like a snail walking across a path. Well this guide will hopefully stop the wise videogame site administrators from making these mistakes, and show them how and what not to do when making a good message board.

First things first, you need a website. In English, you need a good subject which you know plenty about and can write many pages on, some good quality written content and something that somewhat represents a layout. If you do not have this, or think that you can build a forum around a link farm or an empty site, please go away as a forum is not meant to be, as some web design site said, a site in a box.

Now that only the worthwhile forum admins are still reading this, and the others are either building a site or getting a new hobby, you need to choose the software based on the needs of your site, what the server runs and other factors.

If your server runs PHP, you have tons of options open. If you have ASP, you have way less but still a good few options and if you use CGI you also have a decent number of options. However, if you use JSP, or Cold Fusion then this may be a bit of challenge, as the contenders for the forum market around those languages are more limited.

Other Language Forums:

ASP and .NET:

CGI/Perl:

Cold Fusion:

http://www.fusetalk.com/

Java and JSP:

Now, the reviews of the PHP software packages are here.

vBulletin

The enterprise level, leader of all forum software, vBulletin forum software which is made by Jelsoft is a great forum package, and one I am personally using at the moment. It has the high costs of £103 for the owned license (roughly) which allows you to use it for life and comes with tons of features, including full powerful search options, custom profiles, custom BB codes and much other stuff. For more information, read my vBulletin Review.

Invision Power Board

Another highly costly and cool forum, Invision Power Board 2.2 has many of the features of vBulletin as well as many community features and add ons such as a gallery, blogs, CMS and other neat things. It has the advantage of hosting though, so if you are using a server with limited space, their forum hosting packages may be a good idea, and come with a free license.

SMF (Simple Machines Forum)

A new contender when it comes to forum software, this is a free piece of software often installable via the CPanel at many hosts. While not as powerful as the two above it, this does have the advantage of being a much better piece of software than PHP, and may be a decent alternative for people strapped for cash.

phpBB

An old piece of forum software used by many sites, I do not recommend this. In simple terms, the two paid softwares mentioned are better for those with the money and many free forum packages like SMF better for those without. It also has extremely limited features.

Setting up forums is a daunting task for the beginner, as they will have to categorise all the areas of their board. However, there are some tips, as said below which may help if you are starting out:

Only make forums for subjects with enough interest, and that are mainly related to the website content.

Do not have too many at the start.

Do be relevant, and not too general. A forum for 'videogames' is not very thoughtful if you run a Legend of Zelda site. Similarily, have more than 3 forums at the start, but less than 10-15.

Now you are all set up, you need to know a few things and tips. The things below are some 'To dos' and some 'Do nots'. Basically, follow what I say to do and avoid what I say to not do.

To do:

Not to do:

[user name] has 10 010% of forum posts.

So there you have it! Make a good forum today!