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how to start a forum?


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1. Domain Name

 

2. Hosting (PM me if you want a referral link to my host)

 

3. Forum Script -- if you're going free, you'll be stuck with phpBB (ugh). IPB (what HF runs) and vBulletin are both paid scripts. There's a lot more out there, but those are the three main ones.

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https://www.invisionpower.com/customer/orde...,4&cat1=184

 

Also, while it's not necessary, it's best to have some understanding of HTML/PHP/mySQL in order to maintain the forum. Would make it a lot faster to recover the forum should a pesky database error appear, or should it be hacked.

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how do you earn money? get a lot of spam and stuff?

make the ads and stuff

i know a moderate amount of HTML formatting.

i dont think i have the money to be doing this right now but it's always sort of been an interest to me.

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how do you earn money? get a lot of spam and stuff?

make the ads and stuff

i know a moderate amount of HTML formatting.

i dont think i have the money to be doing this right now but it's always sort of been an interest to me.

 

You won't earn money from advertising for a long time, and it won't be much when/if you do.

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it is a waste of time and money, but everything people do for enjoyment is essentially those two things.

 

Eventually a forum can generate a few bucks to offset expenses, but you likely would need a few hundred active members before anything more then a couple bucks a month was generated.

 

Look around. There are a few decent open source forum programs you can run that won't cost you anything. You can run it on your home computer using a dynamic dns service. You will just need to have a domain name if you want to have a decent web name. Otherwise it will be difficult to have people connect or find you. You can set it up and run it for free if you want.

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I think Billy knows enough computer language to know how to run it...

 

You know, the sites that make more money, I believe, are the ones like myspace and facebook where people meet eachother...make it a specific one, like for only certain people (a friend of mine started one for asian people who want to date asians) and voila! :D Specific is the word!

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niche market is the word.

 

we have a dating service/dating forum around here that is popular and it is for farmers only. talk about niche market and the people that own it are making a fortune.

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I sit between two decent street scenes that both have busy web boards; one of them is Columbus Racing, which is anything with wheels that you can drive on a road or track but it seems 75% of the members are DSM, Mustang or Camero owners. They look down on the honda guys pretty badly. The other one is Cincy Street Scene. apparently they are huge and have regular car shows and racing events that they sponsor and everything.

 

All of it borne from a simple forum.

 

Do it!

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