Zetaboards

[Peace2]

I honestly don't care enough about having that sort of control over a forum that you would have with a self hosted forum since I rather not pay money to own a forum.

Same here. I don't care enough or need,or want that much control over my forum,so I go for free hosts instead. Zetaboards is pretty good to say it is 1 fairly new and 2 free. You would have to upgrade to get half of the simplest features that ZB has to offer on a different hosting service.



However, it does bug me that subscribe to topic feature is only for Zetaboards Premium. Like, the features they have to offer when you go Premium are not very convincing or interesting enough for me to want to pay out of pocket.



I was once a nay sayer of ZB but once I started fooling around with it, I got used to it. It's not as hard as people make it out to be as far as administrating in the ACP goes. The only trouble you would have is with skinning your forum, and that's only if you are CSS illiterate like me and afraid to delete some pieces. But if you are good at skinning it really does turn out looking nice.



The only problem I have with it is that it looks kind of chunky.If ZB could slim down like Invisionfree, I would love that.

 

[activeboards.org]

I never use zetaboards. I like phpbb.

 

[deltacommander]

Only forums I know inside and out.

Same here with me pretty much. I like zb, and if both. Their easy to use in a lot of cases.

 

[Blake]

I used to own one its hard to get traffic there since engines dont crawl the site. >.<

 

[Wayne]

I really don't like Zetaboards, used to hate them, now just dislike them

 

[N!ck]

They are pretty good for a free forum, but when it came out I didn't like it so much.

All my favorite IF themes became incompatible and obsolete when ZB came out ):

 

[Jazzy]

I don't really care for them and have never joined a forum using it.

 

[Cranos]

For a free software it's pretty cool. Not everyone has or wants to spend the money on a host and forum software.

 

[Nebulous's iconNebulous]

For a free software it's pretty cool. Not everyone has or wants to spend the money on a host and forum software.

There are plenty of free softwares out there that will allow you to make backups to actually ensure the survival of your forum if something bad were to happen.

 

[Bluezone777]

You have to pay for hosting and a domain so it's not exactly free and I honestly don't see the logic in spending hundreds of dollars on forums which is what you do when you buy a VB or IPB board. I know of plenty of better things to spend that kind of money on then forums. lol

 

[N!ck]

[quote name='Bluezone777'] I honestly don't care enough about having that sort of control over a forum that you would have with a self hosted forum since I rather not pay money to own a forum.

Same here. I don't care enough or need,or want that much control over my forum,so I go for free hosts instead. Zetaboards is pretty good to say it is 1 fairly new and 2 free. You would have to upgrade to get half of the simplest features that ZB has to offer on a different hosting service.



However, it does bug me that subscribe to topic feature is only for Zetaboards Premium. Like, the features they have to offer when you go Premium are not very convincing or interesting enough for me to want to pay out of pocket.



I was once a nay sayer of ZB but once I started fooling around with it, I got used to it. It's not as hard as people make it out to be as far as administrating in the ACP goes. The only trouble you would have is with skinning your forum, and that's only if you are CSS illiterate like me and afraid to delete some pieces. But if you are good at skinning it really does turn out looking nice.



The only problem I have with it is that it looks kind of chunky.If ZB could slim down like Invisionfree, I would love that.[/quote]



Holy chicken nuggets, there is a Zetaboards Premium? O:

 

[Bluezone777]

ZB Premium is basically regular ZB with a few features turned on. It's honestly worthless tbh since the only things you really get are post edit logs, pm logs and a bunch of other worthless crap(to me at least).

 

[Madyy]

Eh...ZB Premium isn't worth it. XD

 

[Blake]

[quote name='Cranos']For a free software it's pretty cool. Not everyone has or wants to spend the money on a host and forum software.

There are plenty of free softwares out there that will allow you to make backups to actually ensure the survival of your forum if something bad were to happen.[/quote]Mybb.

You have to pay for hosting and a domain so it's not exactly free and I honestly don't see the logic in spending hundreds of dollars on forums which is what you do when you buy a VB or IPB board. I know of plenty of better things to spend that kind of money on then forums. lol

Not true, there are plenty of free, post-to-host domains i use sitefrost which is great! Theres also host jiffy.

 

[Cranos]

[quote name='Cranos']For a free software it's pretty cool. Not everyone has or wants to spend the money on a host and forum software.

There are plenty of free softwares out there that will allow you to make backups to actually ensure the survival of your forum if something bad were to happen.[/quote]

I suppose you're talking about Jcink then? Because you'll need to pay for hosting even with myBB or phpBB. TBH the only irreversible thing that could happen is getting cracked and that's pretty much your own fault.

 

[Nebulous's iconNebulous]

There is more irreversable things that could happen. Look at IPBFree. Zathyus is not going to be around forever. The admin could go bankrupt, servers can crash, or a court could order that everything be removed and shut down. You never know. It even says in their TOS that they can shut down or delete your board without notice for any reason and they dont even have to tell you why.

Its too risky to run a forum on a host like that. I know I would not pour tons of effort and time into something that could disappear for any reason at any time. All the people who defend remotely hosted free hosts will change their tune once it all hits the fan for them.



Also, you dont need to pay for hosting or a domain... There is plenty of free web hosts out there and plenty of free domain services. Or you can use whatever url the free host gives you.

You can host your own self maintained phpbb or mybb or smf or whatever without paying a cent. Also there is thousands of modifications for those software's. So on top of having the ability to backup and protect your forum, you can add in tons of different modifications to make your board have more features and functions than a Zetaboard will ever have.

 

[Bluezone777]

My first board got lost to the spreebb crash and I still sing that same tune so really it doesn't change anything. I don't put much effort into any board I run anyways because there is no need to really do anything anymore to it other then post and occasionally advertise when I feel like it. If it did go then I just move it to some other host and tell everyone about it and no one would care. Not all of us are obsessed with those statistics at the bottom which is why anyone would get so upset over losing a board due to a cracking or board host failure. The memories from the board live on even if it is gone and that's what truly matters to me anyways.

 

[Nebulous's iconNebulous]

Not all of us are obsessed with those statistics at the bottom which is why anyone would get so upset over losing a board due to a cracking or board host failure.

The only reason? How about losing a community they poured countless hours of their life into building? A forum full of members and topics (conversations) generates an atmosphere and a community feeling that you cannot replace the next day by creating a new forum. Also how is everyone going to find that new forum? Obviously you wont have access to your broken / crashed / non-existent forum to inform everyone of what happened. Maybe you might be able to get some of your close friends back if they talk to you by IM or email or on some of the other forums you are on. Even if they do find their way to their new forum, they might not even want to re-register.



Sure some forum owners are perfectly fine with knowing that their community could disappear at any instant, possibly leaving hundreds of people lost, confused and upset. However millions of other forum owners don't feel that way. They'd rather safeguard the thing they've invested a lot of time and effort into which seems to be the more logical choice especially when they can do it all for free if they chose to go the free-web-host / free software route.

 

[Flurry]

[quote name='Bluezone777'] Not all of us are obsessed with those statistics at the bottom which is why anyone would get so upset over losing a board due to a cracking or board host failure.

The only reason? How about losing a community they poured countless hours of their life into building? A forum full of members and topics (conversations) generates an atmosphere and a community feeling that you cannot replace the next day by creating a new forum. Also how is everyone going to find that new forum? Obviously you wont have access to your broken / crashed / non-existent forum to inform everyone of what happened. Maybe you might be able to get some of your close friends back if they talk to you by IM or email or on some of the other forums you are on. Even if they do find their way to their new forum, they might not even want to re-register.



Sure some forum owners are perfectly fine with knowing that their community could disappear at any instant, possibly leaving hundreds of people lost, confused and upset. However millions of other forum owners don't feel that way. They'd rather safeguard the thing they've invested a lot of time and effort into which seems to be the more logical choice especially when they can do it all for free if they chose to go the free-web-host / free software route.[/quote]



I agree.

 

[Cranos]

There is more irreversable things that could happen. Look at IPBFree. Zathyus is not going to be around forever. The admin could go bankrupt, servers can crash, or a court could order that everything be removed and shut down. You never know. It even says in their TOS that they can shut down or delete your board without notice for any reason and they dont even have to tell you why.

Its too risky to run a forum on a host like that. I know I would not pour tons of effort and time into something that could disappear for any reason at any time. All the people who defend remotely hosted free hosts will change their tune once it all hits the fan for them.



Also, you dont need to pay for hosting or a domain... There is plenty of free web hosts out there and plenty of free domain services. Or you can use whatever url the free host gives you.

You can host your own self maintained phpbb or mybb or smf or whatever without paying a cent. Also there is thousands of modifications for those software's. So on top of having the ability to backup and protect your forum, you can add in tons of different modifications to make your board have more features and functions than a Zetaboard will ever have.

I've had a board before on a free web host, well I actually tried at least 10 free hosts. None of them were as fast as ZB now is and had a lot more downtime. If you want to build up a community you need at least quality hosting. Also, I never said it's ideal, if you have the money and you want to spend it on a forum, then paid software/hosting is of course better. But it's the most reliable free alternative.



And crackings are really the most threatening atm. If you don't break the TOS, they won't delete your forum and zathyus isn't going anywhere any time soon.