houndzrus Posted November 17, 2007 Report Share Posted November 17, 2007 I am looking at setting up some kind of forum for a group of people who are buying an apartment in the same block as us. We need to set up a committee etc to share info and links. What are the pros and cons of this kind of board (Invision) as against one of the free groups such as MSN? Bearing in mind that I will be setting it up, but I only want minimum fuss and maintenance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snow Posted November 17, 2007 Report Share Posted November 17, 2007 You've answered your own question by saying you want minimum fuss and maintenance - that rules out a forum like this, no matter what the software there is always maintenance. Pros and cons to free forum software - if it's hosted free invariably it'll carry advertising, it also won't be as customiseable as this, nor will you own the database or have access to it - that makes administrating it a bit of a pain moreover should you suddenly find you have a busy and popular board on your hands you'll either have to pay some extortionate fee to change over to their paid hosting (always assuming that they will even then release the database to you) or be faced with having to start over. There are many different open source free boards out there - phpbb3 has now been released and is stable it's going to give forum software like IPB and Vbullitin one hell of a run for their money BUT to use an opensource forum you'll need to pay for hosting - many hosts will offer phpbb or similar as a one click install so it won't be quite so daunting to install it but you will have a learning curve to set it up and customise it - then of course theres the daily & weekly back ups and keeping ahead of the spam bots etc etc etc. The software Refuge uses isn't free, you buy a license - there's different types and different pricing but frankly for what you describe you want it for it's not going to be worth it. If it's just a comittee type thing have you looked at yahoo groups? Thats free and can be set to be private so only you and those you authorise will have access and theres minimal knowledge needed to run one. I myself would avoid msn like the plague - msn have a nasty habit of freaking out - years ago I started my first website as a result of one such freak out I had an msn group, a very large and very popular msn group, it was years of my time and investment in setting it up - one day I logged in and it was gone - every page, every member, everything - gone just like that. Thankfully I had been in the habit of webstripping it every week or so thus was able to recover the majority of the stuff from there but for the thousands of others they'd done it too it was a complete nightmare with most losing their information forever. The reason msn did it? They wanted to be "family safe" so they banned anything they considered unsafe - this meant that any website with a banned word in the name was removed reguardless of the actual content - suSEX county cricket went, as did the MiddleSex domestic violence forum, as did BREAST cancer awareness, as did my Rape support group. They never apologised and they never gave those sites back - they were gone and the members were cut off from each other without any warning whatsoever. Yahoo too will also take away groups - they all can and often do however at least with yahoo you do have the option to export everything to exel or to your pc so even if they did you will have a back up copy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
houndzrus Posted November 17, 2007 Author Report Share Posted November 17, 2007 You've answered your own question by saying you want minimum fuss and maintenance - that rules out a forum like this, no matter what the software there is always maintenance. Pros and cons to free forum software - if it's hosted free invariably it'll carry advertising, it also won't be as customiseable as this, nor will you own the database or have access to it - that makes administrating it a bit of a pain moreover should you suddenly find you have a busy and popular board on your hands you'll either have to pay some extortionate fee to change over to their paid hosting (always assuming that they will even then release the database to you) or be faced with having to start over. There are many different open source free boards out there - phpbb3 has now been released and is stable it's going to give forum software like IPB and Vbullitin one hell of a run for their money BUT to use an opensource forum you'll need to pay for hosting - many hosts will offer phpbb or similar as a one click install so it won't be quite so daunting to install it but you will have a learning curve to set it up and customise it - then of course theres the daily & weekly back ups and keeping ahead of the spam bots etc etc etc. The software Refuge uses isn't free, you buy a license - there's different types and different pricing but frankly for what you describe you want it for it's not going to be worth it. If it's just a comittee type thing have you looked at yahoo groups? Thats free and can be set to be private so only you and those you authorise will have access and theres minimal knowledge needed to run one. I myself would avoid msn like the plague - msn have a nasty habit of freaking out - years ago I started my first website as a result of one such freak out I had an msn group, a very large and very popular msn group, it was years of my time and investment in setting it up - one day I logged in and it was gone - every page, every member, everything - gone just like that. Thankfully I had been in the habit of webstripping it every week or so thus was able to recover the majority of the stuff from there but for the thousands of others they'd done it too it was a complete nightmare with most losing their information forever. The reason msn did it? They wanted to be "family safe" so they banned anything they considered unsafe - this meant that any website with a banned word in the name was removed reguardless of the actual content - suSEX county cricket went, as did the MiddleSex domestic violence forum, as did BREAST cancer awareness, as did my Rape support group. They never apologised and they never gave those sites back - they were gone and the members were cut off from each other without any warning whatsoever. Yahoo too will also take away groups - they all can and often do however at least with yahoo you do have the option to export everything to exel or to your pc so even if they did you will have a back up copy. Thank you Snow, I this has made everything clear for me. We will be only a small private group. Good idea to back up too, hadn't thought of groups disappearing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pingu Posted November 18, 2007 Report Share Posted November 18, 2007 might be worth looking at invisionfree this board software but you have less control over the admin. bit of a halfway house between here and yahoo groups Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
houndzrus Posted November 18, 2007 Author Report Share Posted November 18, 2007 might be worth looking at invisionfree this board software but you have less control over the admin. bit of a halfway house between here and yahoo groups Thank you, I will have a look at that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phoebejo Posted November 18, 2007 Report Share Posted November 18, 2007 I pay about £10 a month for an Invision Power Board, version 2.3.1, so it's a little bit newer than the version this forum is run on but it looks fairly similar. I like the fact that if it breaks, Invision provide 24 hour support and will fix it for me if I ask them I hadn't a clue what I was doing when I set it up, I hadn't really planned it very well, just knew I needed something up and running as soon as possible for some friends from another forum (not a rescue one). I've got 76 members now, it runs fairly smoothly and I'm learning as I go along. It's harder than I thought it would be but I'm very lucky to have a very lovely lady who knows these things really well to help me out when my tiny brain can no longer cope I think Invision do cheaper packages but I was happy to pay more for the extra bandwidth because one of the problems on the board we left was that it was regularly down after exceeding it's permitted bandwidth every month, sometimes for days at a time which was very frustrating. It was tough setting it up, fiddling with bits and making it look pretty when I didn't have a clue what I was doing but with help I got there and I'm very happy with it. It'd probably be easier for somebody who wasn't as much as a techno numpty as me! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
houndzrus Posted November 18, 2007 Author Report Share Posted November 18, 2007 I think Invision do cheaper packages but I was happy to pay more for the extra bandwidth because one of the problems on the board we left was that it was regularly down after exceeding it's permitted bandwidth every month, sometimes for days at a time which was very frustrating. That's something I hadn't thought of, well worth looking into, as I'm not quite sure how much use the board will get. Thank you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
houndzrus Posted November 20, 2007 Author Report Share Posted November 20, 2007 Thanks for all your help. I have set up my board and will tinker with it for a while before allowing members. It has been quite interesting figuring things out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts