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This question is more directed at Vekseid.

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Luna

Supernova
Joined
Jan 9, 2009
What do you need to start a forum website? I'm curious.

And money wise, how much is it?
 
I am not vekseid....

BUT A HUGE FUCKING LOAD OF PEOPLE

{I tried starting a couple forums, only one is still going today.}
 
Luna said:
What do you need to start a forum website? I'm curious.

And money wise, how much is it?

Assuming you don't want a free forum, a domain name and a host that provides script access (never buy a domain name with your hosting provider). LAMP (Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP) is common, but not the only game in town. Dreamhost works okay for small to midranged communities, for $9 a month or so. That sort of price is typical for such places. They often have something insane like averaging less than 1% of the CPU for one minute rule.

As Death Angel Vox said, "A huge fucking load of people." Unless you have something to offer personally (see, for example, Dwarf Fortress, etc) momentum matters . Frequently a large enough community such as Elliquiy or Blue Moon becomes its own draw, but until that point, you need something else. Elliquiy came to be because RPoL became more puritan (and still is), sending wave after wave of people E's way as games got shut down. I'm not sure how or why Blue Moon began, but I made sure everyone who signed up to the old one knew about the new BM's existence to make sure it had momentum.

Starting a forum is pretty simple, at least until it gets big. Then you run into efficiency and scaling issues, eventually. You either need to know how to handle that, find someone who does, or get a 'real' solution - a VPS, a dedicated server, etc... and you end up paying say, $150/month for your second home instead of $10 >_>

What else you might want factors in, of course.
 
I'll probably start a free forum to begin with...a shit load of people I do not have.
 
Apache I believe is one of the more reliable whatchamawhosits(The actual name of what it is escapes me.) Its one of the ones I used a long time ago, and yes a lot of people...and a few who know how to tinker with the programming is also good, and moolah. >.>;
 
Luna said:
I'll probably start a free forum to begin with...a shit load of people I do not have.

The main problem with free forums is that you're not allowed to grab the database when you decide to leave. You're not really the one in control then.

A person's time is a spent commodity, it's kind of interesting to watch. Part of the reason blogs are so successful is they directly front a single person's experience, whereas in order for a forum to get such a reputation, they need to stand up for that entire forum. You need to fulfill some genuine need or desire to do that with.
 
Honey, I just need something to occupy myself with. I haven't modded anything since I was seventeen, and I like modding since it gave me something to do when my rps stopped.

I need busy work.
 
Luna said:
Honey, I just need something to occupy myself with. I haven't modded anything since I was seventeen, and I like modding since it gave me something to do when my rps stopped.

I need busy work.

It's more rewarding to come up with something that will be appreciated, however : )
 
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