I know Jcink is old as dirt but has anyone here used it or has at least been active on forums that use it? What do you think of the overall forum software being offered freely?
I use it for some primary reasons:
Free
Jcink seemed in need of a resource board.
Nostalgic about using InvisionFree back in the day.
Easy to operate with no back-end knowledge required.
I haven't used a Jcink forum in a while. I think the last time I ever used it was around 2015 if I remember rightly. It's great if you are looking for something that is free and also professional-looking as well. I have to agree with you as well in terms of the easy to operate. Even if you are new to owning a forum, Jcink is perfect.
Jcink is the best free forum host. If you ever want to move to self hosting, it’s one of the few free forum hosts that allows you to get a database backup of your forum. Plus there’s plenty of awesome professional themes easily available to download and install on your forum.
Never used them, I have been on sites that have used the software but I never really loved their platform to say to myself that I would go with them. I can't say how good or bad about it. Good starting point software then move on, but then how many sites still use them?
I'm not going to argue with you there, but it carries some modern features that some forum software has (shops, HTML templates, a mobile-friendly mode). Most forums these days don't have a whole lot of activity no matter what software they're using. I think as long as many of the staff members actively engage with the community, then the activity will stay steady enough to remain open.
I've been considering throwing together a Jcink community. I just recently learned of a resource board (jCodes 😛) that may make it even more enticing.
Similar to ProBoards, Jcink has been around a long time and is still actively being updated, from my understanding mostly on the backend but still. While it runs on an old version of IPB 1.3 as the owner of Jcink states the code is hardly what it used to be after all of the reworking that's been done.
I recently became associated with Jcink. Apparently, many Role Playing forums use this software. I can see the appeal for visual aesthetics, but I find the user interface isn't all that great, and while the customization is pretty good, sometimes I feel as though somebody gave a toddler a book of matches and they're sitting next to a can of gasoline, if you catch my meaning. But then again, maybe I'm just old school, and rather have my forum laid out in a certain way, without a bunch of crazy customizations.
I only started using Jcink after ZetaBoards merged with TapaTalk. I've really enjoyed the software and making skins/templates for it. The customization can be pretty amazing!
Only went on Jcink way back in 2018 in light of the ZetaBoards demise (like most other people), but months later I would regret it... and still feel the same since I reopened my forum.
Fortunately, I won't be using it any longer (whenever I get the forum moved off from there).
