RE: Forum Software

We use webcrossings in our commercial site at www.choice.com.au.  It can 
handle hundreds of thousands of messages a day, although we don't use 
anywhere near as much as that.


It's available at http://www.webcrossing.com

I believe web crossings have a free version for lower capacity, provided you 
keep their logo on the foot of the page.

It's totally customisable, using templates, but it works straight "out of 
the box" so to speak.

You can have multiple forums, user login with/without pictures, email 
address verification, threads, users can subscribe to some discussions if 
they want, so they are alerted to new messages in their areas of interest 
when they log on.  Almost every aspect of the forums is customisable.  
Either you just leave everything as is, and it runs, or you create a 
template file with the part in it you want to change.

We've been running it for nearly a year now, with the only change we've made 
being cosmetic - graphics, layout etc.  We've left the functionality 
completely alone and it's worked fine.  We have a forum for each of the 
major areas of interest for the Consumers Association - Genetically Modified 
Foods,  Household Appliances, Health, Money, Your Rights, etcetc, and inside 
that any number of topics are discussed, started in our case by the 
journalists who are working on a story or campaign.

If you want to see how we've done it, go to 
http://www.choice.com.au/forums/forums.exe

And while you're at it, why not add your comment to our campaign on 
anti-spam legislation :)


Cheers,
Mike Kear
AFP Web Development
Webmaster, Australian Consumers Association
Windsor, NSW, Australia
http://www.choice.com.au


>From: <diana37(at)bigfoot.com>
>Reply-To: <chosenpath(at)chosenpath.net>
>To: <hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org>
>Subject: RE: Forum Software
>Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 20:00:10 -0400
>
>I've been using dcforum for about a year now. It can handle your needs with
>ease and give you as much or as less control as you would like. You can 
>also
>create different boards for different hobbies if you'd like all within the
>same forum.
>http://www.dcscripts.com/
>Diana
>
>  -----Original Message-----
>From: 	owner-hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org [mailto:owner-hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org]
>On Behalf Of Arcady
>Sent:	Wednesday, June 14, 2000 12:37 PM
>To:	hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org
>Subject:	Forum Software
>
>Hello;
>
>I'm looking to set up a discussion forum on a hobby site.
>I'd need something that could handle multiple threads, linking between
>threads,
>& let people link in images but not host them.
>
>Something an admin could have some level of control over.
>
>And as a hobby site using some sort of freeware software.
>
>Specificly a shared fiction site constrained to a prechosen topic.
>
>Does anyone know where I could find such.
>
>I have a rudimentary understanding of Perl and know Java; so I could
>maintain
>something requiring those skills. Unfortunately I'm not at the level were I
>could create it on my own.
>
>I've had experience with WWWboard from Matt's Script Archive a few years
>back
>but found it not up to the task of multiple threads and displaying in an
>orderly
>fashion (it displayed all and not just a 'last few days' listing).
>

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