David wrote: > I wouldn't touch Yahoo or Google forums with a bargepole. You would > always be at their mercy.
Well, I'm glad to see I'm not totally alone in that opinion! <grin> > Personally I think the email option is completely overrated - possibly > by members who are not familiar with the ease and speed of looking at a > proper web based threaded forum. Let's explore that a little. Do any of you have bandwidth limitations that make visiting a web page burdensome? (We do have members worldwide, and I remember there being times when folks were on fairly primitive connections, while others were still on dial-up.) > It may be handy to receive a digest but if its too confusing to > navigate or follow a thread then whats the point? I get the digest > daily but these days I rarely look at it. Its too messy. The digest created by this list software is not supported well by many of the popular e-mail systems, so it doesn't even work for many folks. Unfortunately, it's one of those places where standards have been widely ignored. > Complaints about having to log in or use passwords are also a bit lame. > You can save the password so it only has to be done once. This is true on any system you have control over. If you use public machines or otherwise share your computer with anybody you don't completely trust, there can be issues. > I'm a member of many forums. The first 4 that I looked at today all use > various versions of vBulletin. > > http://www.vbulletin.com That's the leader in this product niche. The only downside is that it is commercial software, leaving you at the mercy of whatever the company decides to do, apart from the cost of a license. (Which I paid for a few years back, so isn't a big issue at this time.) > I've always found them to be very easy to use, with ample features > including the ability to POST PICS. (How handy would that be! You can > also run ads which would help cover the cost. RaVen rightly points out the annoyance and intrusiveness of ads... however... > They can be as simple or as complicated as you want to make them. Right. It's fairly common for forums to only display ads to visitors who are not logged in. Members are spared once they log in. Plus it would be up to me how aggressive to be with adverts... and you can presume I'd keep a pretty tight lid on them. Apart from all of that, running a forum is a bigger job than the benign relative neglect that we manage to survive with here. It would be much more visible, leading to more new people, higher traffic levels, and more vulnerability to SPAM and other attacks. I'd need to train up at least a couple of volunteers to help run the joint... And I don't really know how the group would survive the transition. It would be a different place. Probably better, but ultimately changed. Further thoughts, anyone? No rush on my part, but I'm more than willing to consider different ideas. Be well, Mike D. -- The Silver List is a moderated forum for discussing Colloidal Silver. Rules and Instructions: http://www.silverlist.org Unsubscribe: <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe> Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html Off-Topic discussions: <mailto:[email protected]> List Owner: Mike Devour <mailto:[email protected]>
