A serious question. Good Answers Needed.

[DrLeftover]

My wife is looking to start a forum for Essential Oils customers, 'users', group members, businesses, etc.

She would like me to set it up.

By necessity, it needs to be on a free host to start with a free host.

While I can do HTML and that side of things, I am clueless about the 'back room' stuff of forums.

She would like an open 'public' area, and a 'private (invite only)' area.

Which of the available options would be best?

It would be helpful if the admin side could be successfully managed by Donald Duck.

Thank you.

 

[Bamboo]

MyBB is very easy admin wise, the public area / private area can simply be done by having separate usergroups w/ little changes to forum permissions on the private section. By invite, do you mean the administrator(your wife) upgrading them into it?

Would you want it hosted on a free house so you have full control or would you prefer a website which would host the forum for you(limited control)?

 

[DrLeftover]

Yes, she and other admins would have to grant access to the private area.

I own multiple websites and pay for hosting where I am the admin (themediadesk.com and others), and she has her own for her other projects, the idea behind this is to have it interactive with users/members/customers.

 

[Nebulous]

Zetaboards is easy for beginners and is hosted for free (ad supported). Be aware if you create a forum there, it cannot be moved or converted to something else.

IcyBoards is a free MyBB host and allows you to export your database backup and take it somewhere else if you ever wanted to do that (I think they charge $20 for the backup).

However since you have hosting already for your websites, (assuming you can set up MySQL databases & run PHP 4 or 5+) you could host her forum & use MyBB, SMF or phpBB. All of them have pretty much the same capabilities so you'd have to pick one based on personal preference.

 

[DrLeftover]

The host used to have SQL. I don't know if they still do.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll look into that.

 

[Nebulous]

No problemo.

 

[DrLeftover]

She's looking through the suggested free options since our web host does charge a little extra per month to enable the forum feature on the sites.

 

[Raven]

I'm completely out of the loop on all the forums these days, I wouldn't know where to start, Always wanted to start again on a little project. But I can't be bothered lol.

Dr. if you get it set up and ready to go PM me, I would like to join

 

[DrLeftover]

She has been looking at formats and stuff.

If she makes a decision, I'll let you all know.

 

[DrLeftover]

This morning she has just decided to go Icy.

I'm hoping to get a few minutes to look into that this afternoon because, as it turns out, she is hosting a class tomorrow evening and wants to mention it to those that come.

 

[Ashley]

This morning she has just decided to go Icy.

I'm hoping to get a few minutes to look into that this afternoon because, as it turns out, she is hosting a class tomorrow evening and wants to mention it to those that come.

Glad she found something she likes. Good luck with the forum.

 

[Aronath]

This morning she has just decided to go Icy.

I'm hoping to get a few minutes to look into that this afternoon because, as it turns out, she is hosting a class tomorrow evening and wants to mention it to those that come.

Hope that works out well for her. I've had the experience with using just about every paid and free forum software out there, and I would definitely say that for the price of being free, MyBB is an excellent board system.

 

[DrLeftover]

I put together a VERY simple and basic board for her.

She made a few suggestions and I fiddled with things.

And, for now, she's satisfied with it.

As for whether or not it works out and she uses it, that's up to her.

Thank you for your suggestions, they were all appreciated.

 

[reddyash]

MyBB is a good simple forum. This forum would be a good idea for you. Rearding hosting there are many web hosts who offer free hosting why dont you review them.

 

[Mercedes01]

So much of that stuff on the net it bores me.