Aisling Posted January 6, 2009 Report Share Posted January 6, 2009 I am looking to set up a new forum for my dance school. However I am clueless as to how to go about doing so. Can someone point me in the right direction? thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trailertrash Posted January 6, 2009 Report Share Posted January 6, 2009 start with this Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aisling Posted January 6, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 6, 2009 start with this haha very funny. ;) i like going to the source. ya know... people i know who are successful at doing the thing i want to do. you can look up anything on google, sure but if you know an auto mechanic you ask him. you don't google 'what's this banging sound' thanks for the snark though... i feel at home. LOL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack M Posted January 6, 2009 Report Share Posted January 6, 2009 just use phpBB. It's free and easy. However if you want to pay for support and maintenance for a more commercial site, use VBulletin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil Gendzwill Posted January 6, 2009 Report Share Posted January 6, 2009 Those are the two common ones. I haven't set up a site on either, but I moderate one with VBulletin and it works pretty well. I wouldn't recommend it for the non-technically inclined, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aisling Posted January 6, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 6, 2009 thanks Jack I'll check that out. i don't mind maintaining a site but its more security i'm concerned about. like jerks posting crap for viagra and worse on a page that kids look at for class stuff and gear. director originally wanted forum public in case new students wanted to check stuff out, but i'm thinking we need a username/password system. cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil Gendzwill Posted January 6, 2009 Report Share Posted January 6, 2009 In VBulletin, you can protect from automated spam by enabling image verification (where you need to interpret distorted text to create an account) and/or question verification (where you need to answer a question a machine couldn't). However there are people who get paid to post spam, so even with those guards in place you have to watch for spam. If your potential list of users is small, you can set it up so the moderator approves every new account. That might well be manageable for you and would eliminate almost all spam. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dingbat Posted January 6, 2009 Report Share Posted January 6, 2009 What sort of dance? Where in MA? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack M Posted January 6, 2009 Report Share Posted January 6, 2009 thanks Jack I'll check that out. i don't mind maintaining a site but its more security i'm concerned about. like jerks posting crap for viagra and worse on a page that kids look at for class stuff and gear. director originally wanted forum public in case new students wanted to check stuff out, but i'm thinking we need a username/password system.cheers In VBulletin, you can protect from automated spam by enabling image verification (where you need to interpret distorted text to create an account) and/or question verification (where you need to answer a question a machine couldn't). However there are people who get paid to post spam, so even with those guards in place you have to watch for spam.If your potential list of users is small, you can set it up so the moderator approves every new account. That might well be manageable for you and would eliminate almost all spam. Shockingly, image verification is of little help. The good bots can breeze right past it using the same AI technology that is used for handwriting recognition on tablet/palm computers, and face detection in digital cameras. The thing that has all but stopped the spam bots here is the new "trivia question" that must be answered on registration. Start to register a new user here and you'll see it. This is customizeable in VBulletin, and you can code one in phpBB if you're savvy. extremecarving.com uses phpBB and they wrote a trivia question into their registration page. Most bots see this and don't even try. Some still do, and they get the question wrong. However in VB that by itself wouldn't prevent them from registering and posting, so you do have to turn on moderation for all new users. Then you will see who got the question wrong when you go to approve new users (a daily chore). Bottom line, nothing can stop a human spammer, but I'd estimate they are less than 0.1% of all the spammer registrations we've gotten. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil Gendzwill Posted January 6, 2009 Report Share Posted January 6, 2009 The question doesn't stop the registration? What's the point of that? ETA: just tried it on my system, and the question does stop the registration. You have to choose question or image verification, can't have both. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobdea Posted January 7, 2009 Report Share Posted January 7, 2009 PHPbb is pretty simple setup you database and go, it's been awhile since I set up mine. bots are a bitch, if you have the time manually approve the new members. If you need help email me and I can at least try. ohh, I'm on AIM too Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack M Posted January 7, 2009 Report Share Posted January 7, 2009 The question doesn't stop the registration? What's the point of that?ETA: just tried it on my system, and the question does stop the registration. You have to choose question or image verification, can't have both. Interesting, what version of VBulletin are you running? Must be a new feature. Fin set up our question as just another field in the user profile, so that's why it's not stopping the registrations, and so we have to manually approve all new users. However just the addition of that question with the checkbox answers stopped a ton of spam-bots from even trying to register. We were getting like 20 a day, now it's one or two. So manually approving new users isn't that much of a pain. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil Gendzwill Posted January 7, 2009 Report Share Posted January 7, 2009 We might get as many as 20 legit users a day registering, although typically it's around 10. Right now we're running 3.8.0 release candidate 2, which surprises me because usually we're a rev behind and now we're ahead of the official release. 3.8 comes out formally this Friday. I'm pretty sure the trivia question is in the current release (3.7.5) - check in the admin panel under vBulletin options, human verification manager. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack M Posted January 7, 2009 Report Share Posted January 7, 2009 Ah, we're only on 3.6.8 patch 2, we don't have that. Ahem... Fin? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil Gendzwill Posted January 7, 2009 Report Share Posted January 7, 2009 You should definitely uprev, in addition to the cool features in 3.7, there's a lot of security holes that have been patched. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aisling Posted January 8, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 8, 2009 thanks for the info guys. i'm gonna try to set up something before classes start again. cheers! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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