harishankar

Just my two rupees... I have browsed the web and found quite a few forums out there. What I find is that no matter what forum you are running on, [i][b]if you take the time and effort to customize the themes, the look and feel of your site[/b][/i] to make …

Just joined :) I saw a couple of threads that dealt with the issue of promoting one's site. I am very happy with the pointers I've received so I decided to join.

It's very hard to achieve PR > 5. Your site needs to be exceptionally well networked to get a higher page rank than 5. I would say 5 is a pretty decent rank and you'll get lots of keywords anyway. So don't focus on the PR value but rather try …

[QUOTE=The DJ]I have but so much time to post a thread before the server refreshes. Once it does that, everything I typed is lost. I got tired of fussing at him about it. He knows how to control it, he knows it's agrravating but he doesn't care about that. The …

[QUOTE=cscgal]Does your forum use reputation points? Karma? How does it work? Do you find it is helpful or just sparks unhealthy competition among members?[/QUOTE] No. I had once brought up this idea in my forum and my users were unanimously against the suggestion (most of them). I also believe that …

[QUOTE=no_spam_for_dan;926866]I happened to see (and isolate) the following problem and have 2 questions: 1) tkMessageBox is used extensively in my code. How do I make my code work without a significant re-write? 2) how do I tell the wonderful tkinter developers that there is a problem? The problem is seen …

I am not a big fan of images on signatures because they tend to take away the flow of a topic and are annoying distractions. I recently had a member who posted two huge images on his signature and I asked him to remove them - politely of course - …

A niche forum is difficult to get off the ground initially. I have experienced this myself. However, if such a forum starts growing you might be one-of-a-kind, unique forum. Keep at it and good luck with your efforts. :)

Do you think that word of mouth marketing is the best option for promoting new forums, particularly when it's a niche forum which doesn't cater to a general audience and you cannot easily promote through normal channels? That is tell friends and relatives about the forum and try to spread …

It uses a very simple PHP script to use text files as articles and directories as categories to build a website. It's a very simple CMS and uses no database to store anything. It doesn't have comments or search, but it is a good solution for a fairly static, traditional …

Don't be too desperate when you start a community. Everything takes time to grow so in that perspective, you've made a pretty good start. Don't burn yourself out by trying too much. You'll end up hating your community if you do that. I would suggest you give yourself lots of …

Besides, people can simply remove all their personal info from their profile if they are really concerned about privacy and such. One thing is that deleting members will lead to problems as outlined by cscgal. I would never delete members even on request.

MyBB is another excellent script and it's improving by the day. Though it lacks third party hacks and customizations, it should be a good option for those looking for a free, but fairly feature-rich board: [url]www.mybboard.net[/url] Check out SMF too, because it is really configurable and customizable.

What are you thoughts on SMF as a forum solution as compared to phpBB? I've been seriously thinking about converting my forum from phpBB to SMF. Is it worth it? I've tried it in a local environ. It's very, very powerful and customizable, but the admin interface is very unwieldy. …

I've discovered a great lightweight forum solution for one of my new projects: it's called usebb and it's available here: [url]http://www.usebb.net/[/url] It's really so easy to theme and template and provides a minimalist yet logical approach to forums so most of the extra features are cut out. The administration interface …

One of the things is that it reduces the "branding" of your community. When people look at the community the first thing they notice is the visual aspect and appeal of the site. Only then do they observe content. I've seen dozens of communities that use multiple visual themes selectable …

Somehow I am not comfortable with the idea of asking people to post on my community unless I know them well. This goes both for paid posting as well as for post exchange kind of things. I guess the issue here is that I'd rather have a lower level of …

[quote=stymiee;262280]2 months is nothing in Internet time. Be patient and keep promoting your site. Eventually it will pay off.[/quote] I agree. It takes ages for search engines to index your site and then get your site a good rank. In the meantime I propose you also use word-of-mouth promotion. Nothing …

IS there a direct backup/restore MySQL databases option in Plesk? If so, you should use that rather than phpmyadmin. I used CPanel and there was such an option to backup/restore MySQL databases without using phpmyadmin. Also if you have ssh access, you could directly dump the mysql database using the …

Start off with something simple that you can explore in PHP and MySQL, like displaying a list of database items in a HTML table and then take it from there. If you want some complex site, you can also use existing PHP scripts to do the job. You can find …

It would be best to download and install something like this: [url]http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-windows.html[/url] On Linux it's much easier and the preferred platform for Apache/PHP/MySQL development.

I think even for a community this big, there are far too many forums and subforums in the forum index. :) Please don't take this as a negative criticism - I appreciate all that daniweb has to offer, I just find many sections inactive which gives the impression that the …

I personally think this field is very competitive and you won't get much reward out of free hosting either. If anything, I suggest that if you make a great script with great features, why not just sell it for a price? It needn't be super expensive, but you might make …

What do you believe is the best way to command respect as an admin of an online community? Do you think that an admin who adopts a distant attitude and very rarely participates in the main discussions and instead focusses exclusively on meta-site related stuff is an admin who'll gain …

Getting registrations is no big deal. The biggest problem is making people stay and enjoy your community. This needs work, commitment and dedication over a period of time and does not happen instantly. Anyway, you have some pretty impressive stats already so I guess you just need to keep at …

My experience with AdSense has shown me that AdWords is worse than useless. Nobody clicks on the google ads. Absolutely nobody. It's not worth spending any money to advertise because people turn off ads and you cannot get any clicks. I've been getting decent traffic on my site, but absolutely …

Well. I'm poor. But I am hoping that there is enough advertising revenue on my current phpBB forum to fund a vBulletin license by the next year. I find vBulletin to be fantastic, but I cannot afford it :( Well, as they say I'll be trying phpBB Olympus when it …

Please give me your views on the pros and cons of having a karma/reputation system in a board. Does it promote activity and encourage good posting and gives due recognition to good posters or is it a counterproductive move? What about the pitfalls? How does one prevent abuse? And finally …

I absolutely *detest* the email verification business. If you're afraid of spambots, I guess the "visual confirmation" on registration is a good idea to keep them away. As far as human spammers go, you can always ban them as needed. I really don't see a problem with allowing users to …

[QUOTE=Mighty_Squid]Do to a variety of research I have really tried to get my forums to be attractive to new members. I have a decent skin it doesn't look like everywhere else. I have dummy accounts whom I have post to get discussion going. I have recruited friends who would be …

I've considered this question in some detail. Actually I've seen many "spammers" who advertise their site and then get banned after one warning. I've also seen unbearable trolls being given a long rope. Some of these trolls reach unbelievable heights of "trollsmanship" by the nonsense they spout regularly without contributing …

I have written an article on the relative merits and demerits of phpBB on my blog. You can read it [url=http://hari.literaryforums.org/?p=3]here[/url]. Hope you find it useful. If you're a power user, definitely go for something like Simple Machines if you cannot afford the price of vBulletin. If you can afford …

Being an admin of 2 months with 23 members, I feel the need to keep my community alive by posting often. But I guess as time goes on, I'll not be in a similar position. Administrators of different forums have different approaches from what I've observed. A business-like forum usually …

My forum has only about 1000 posts with about 50 members in 5 months. This is a slow progress, but I am quite happy because the content contributed has been of excellent quality (we are a book reviews and discussion community) and not a single user has flamed or trolled …

Just a thought. Do website theme or colour scheme have some kind of an effect on an online community? I've not seen evidence either way, but how does it, if at all, affect a community? What kind of impact do colours have on the overall mood and feel of an …

I had an interesting discussion going on in my forum. Since Daniweb does not allow URLs, I will paste my message which I wrote on my forum and which I consider as my theory of online forums. [quote]My theory on online communities is pretty much based on real human social …

[QUOTE=Danny]I was wondering: [b]what would you think the worst way to promote a community is?[/b] Obviously spamming is --- but what else is something bad to do? Giving away prizes for the biggest posters? Stealing a template and using it? Free Hosting Giveaways?? :eek:[/QUOTE] Worst way is to beg your …

That would be [url]www.phpbbhacks.com[/url] :)

Disallow it. Be firm but polite. In case of genuine spammers, warn them once and then ban. But turn that rule to your advantage. Ask people genuinely interested in promoting their site to advertise with you or exchange links. Point them out to your "links" directory page if you have …

[QUOTE=ruffy]Thanks Gandalf. I finally can run MySql Administrator and MySql Browser and have finally gotten phpBB installed - thanks to you. Nothing is all that easy on Windows. Is there some place I can now go to to learn how best to configure the newly installed code?[/QUOTE] [url]www.phpbb.com[/url] is the …

There is a search engine optimization MOD in phpBB. Installing this hack is a bit tricky, but follow the instructions carefully. Among other things, it eliminates a lot of "page-drain", removal of session ids for guest and static URLs for forums and topics. Follow this link, download the hack and …

I tend to agree that offering a prize money of $25 will show your desperation to attract people to your site. It is very bad for a webmaster to show desperation with such offers and constant requests to post content on your site. More than anything else, it will only …

A tough call. Generally the more "focussed" your forum is, the more chances are that you will attract more visitors who share similar interests. However, be warned that it will take a long, long time to pick up as there might not be too many people who share the same …

Google definitely seems to be the best ranking system. No coincidence that google is also the most popular search engine today. Yahoo! and MSN, in my opinion are not playing fair. It's very obvious when you search for your website even by its name and it doesn't show at all …

I say being a good member on *any* random forum isn't good enough. You need to be a good member on a similar forum with people of similar interests as your own forum and you'll get better results.

Just thought you might like to know Dani, but there is an annoying ad (Netscape Internet services) which blocks the genuine text and content on your site. It is not a popup ad, but it behaves like one by simply going on top of the genuine content in the middle …

I am running a pretty new site and I have two moderation groups: Editorial Staff (for my content forums) General Staff (for my other forums) The person I chose for the General Staff has not logged in for over a month now. I am caught in a difficult position. Do …

Just that question. What are the pros and cons of implementing a no-advertising policy (i.e. while posting) in new communities which are looking for more members? Do you think initially people should be allowed to advertise their sites/products or is this a bad thing? Let me know what you all …

I too would like to know how to make it big. How exactly do you join a links exchange program?