Trends?

[AnAccount]

I'm wondering if the people who love copying FP will start resigning their forums like the way Efc, Murder and Fowler resigned here and perhaps start deleting their old Administrators' accounts... Go for it guys! Just because FP does it it's the right thing to do! 🙂

On a non sarcastic note: I think that there are far too many forums out there which is a huge problem. Free hosts should never have existed. Setting up forums should be hard which means that people actually appreciate how hard it is to make a good community.

You know, to an extent, I have to agree with you. I mean, if all hosts were paid and not free, I would never have gone to so many hosting sites in the first place. This is something I still seriously regret. And yes, I also agree that there are a lot of forums out there, and the bad part about that is, forums are way too addicting! And once you settle down to a decent host (like I have finally) owning a forum becomes addicting stuff. It becomes a constant worry even if you have staff members. Because you never know if there's going to be a slip up or whatever have you. And far too many forums = way too much competition for younger forum owners, and that kind of thing.

 

[Watch Me Sink]

Free hosts should never have existed.

I disagree. Large forums like TalkBass, FuturamaFF, and ForumPromotion were all started on free hosts.

 

[DarkRaven]

Free hosts should never have existed.

I disagree. Large forums like TalkBass, FuturamaFF, and ForumPromotion were all started on free hosts.

For the most part they are a false market though. Obviously a small number of forums will get through, but most hosts, like Forumotion, will not give your database even for real money. Those that give you your database will charge you a hell of a lot for it.

 

[Watch Me Sink]

If you really wanted to be an asshole, you could sue forumotion for the DB, as in the TOS it never says that they own the forum.
But I doubt anybody would take it that far.

 

[cityStatic]

I think it's because their databases are heavily modded, so it won't be compatable with anything BUT forumotion.

 

[Justin]

^ I belevie that

 

[fantanoice]

On a non sarcastic note: I think that there are far too many forums out there which is a huge problem. Free hosts should never have existed. Setting up forums should be hard which means that people actually appreciate how hard it is to make a good community.

Free hosts are really just for beginners. I'm only sticking with my free host because I don't feel like losing a whole chunk of members/posts again, plus Zetaboards has been pretty reliable so far. Next time when I set up a forum though, I intend to self-host it.

But the thing is, the difficulty of running a forum shouldn't come from the host, because the host is providing a service. It's their responsibility to keep it running (and if your hosting it yourself, well then yes it's your responsibility). The main difficulty of running forums should come from the actual 'forum' related stuff, like keeping people active, keeping content flowing and getting new members.

At least with free hosts, beginners can practice the 'forum-related' stuff, then gradually get into the technical stuff. We don't want to scare people away from running forums, because in most cases, every forum is going to be different (apart from copycat forums), simply because the Founder will have a different vision for it each time.

There will never be too many forums. The more, the merrier. That's like saying there are too many movies or songs, but in reality, even though many may be similar, they're all slightly different. I like seeing that and I hope many more forums are made for the years to come. If you don't, you can simply not join them.

But back to the matter at hand, free hosts should exist, simply for practice. It like using GIMP before moving to Photoshop. It's good to practice with and when you're ready, you can go for the bigger product. Forums shouldn't be an overly complicated, technical thing, because most people are in it for the social aspect, aka: the community aspect, as opposed to the technical aspect. And hey, to get a successful forum, you're going to tackle a number of difficulties one way or another and a free host doesn't protect you from them. Free hosts have to put up with servers being down, people that turn their nose up to free hosts, along with other things. Most forum owners will convert to self host at some point, but that's only if they want control of the technical aspect as well as the social. The concept may be a scary thing for a beginner, when really, forums should be fun.

"It's not the host that makes the forum, it's the content."

 

[Red Herring]

I think that there are far too many forums out there which is a huge problem. Free hosts should never have existed. Setting up forums should be hard which means that people actually appreciate how hard it is to make a good community.

I'm going to have to strongly disagree with that. While a lot of people have misused the services of Free Forums. They're a very welcome addition to the online world.

Quite a few successes could never have been if it weren't for Free Forum Hosts. And I've been in forum life for a very long time, I've met a huge amount of forum admins who love and appreciate their communities. Most never even have the desire to move to an official domain. I've made tons of connections to other people who were situated on, or ran free forums, and those connections have helped my greatly while getting through my online life.

And for one of my friends, I made him a much happier guy by introducing him to a Free Host. He was going through a very rough time in his life, was often beat by his parents, and had almost died several times in the past few years. He even took up smoking, and harbored self-harm and thoughts of suicide. So I introduced him to my own community (on a paid domain), and he enjoyed it quite a bit, and it started to stop his "issues". Then I asked him if he wouldn't mind creating his own forum. But he didn't have any money, so I introduced him to Forumotion. I showed him the ropes of administration, helped him get some active members...and he became happier than he ever was. Even kicking his smoking habit a couple months later, and stopped feeling so depressed all the time. His forum became pretty decent sized too. And he's one of the most caring and respectful admins I've ever met.

Not EVERYTHING has to be professional.


Alongside that, don't underestimate their uses. They can be used often to design your forum layout (instead of wasting time trying to figure out things if you just open a domain), including writing guidelines, and perhaps even get some volunteer members before you move to a paid domain.

 

[AnAccount]

On a non sarcastic note: I think that there are far too many forums out there which is a huge problem. Free hosts should never have existed. Setting up forums should be hard which means that people actually appreciate how hard it is to make a good community.

Free hosts are really just for beginners. I'm only sticking with my free host because I don't feel like losing a whole chunk of members/posts again, plus Zetaboards has been pretty reliable so far. Next time when I set up a forum though, I intend to self-host it.

But the thing is, the difficulty of running a forum shouldn't come from the host, because the host is providing a service. It's their responsibility to keep it running (and if your hosting it yourself, well then yes it's your responsibility). The main difficulty of running forums should come from the actual 'forum' related stuff, like keeping people active, keeping content flowing and getting new members.

At least with free hosts, beginners can practice the 'forum-related' stuff, then gradually get into the technical stuff. We don't want to scare people away from running forums, because in most cases, every forum is going to be different (apart from copycat forums), simply because the Founder will have a different vision for it each time.

There will never be too many forums. The more, the merrier. That's like saying there are too many movies or songs, but in reality, even though many may be similar, they're all slightly different. I like seeing that and I hope many more forums are made for the years to come. If you don't, you can simply not join them.

But back to the matter at hand, free hosts should exist, simply for practice. It like using GIMP before moving to Photoshop. It's good to practice with and when you're ready, you can go for the bigger product. Forums shouldn't be an overly complicated, technical thing, because most people are in it for the social aspect, aka: the community aspect, as opposed to the technical aspect. And hey, to get a successful forum, you're going to tackle a number of difficulties one way or another and a free host doesn't protect you from them. Free hosts have to put up with servers being down, people that turn their nose up to free hosts, along with other things. Most forum owners will convert to self host at some point, but that's only if they want control of the technical aspect as well as the social. The concept may be a scary thing for a beginner, when really, forums should be fun.

"It's not the host that makes the forum, it's the content."

This is the huge reason why I'm staying with a free host as well. Over the past year I've had people tell me, "you should get advanced hosting... then you can have more control over your forum". I understand that by going on a free host, it's not exactly your forum, it's their forum, but at the same time, I like free hosts, because I only have so much time to be on the computer at the moment, and I have opened and closed my boards too many times already, so I really don't feel like starting from scratch yet again, and well, it's nice to know that the technical help is there, anyway. I don't have to hire tech administrators to install mods and stuff like that. Sure, that means contests and stuff will be limited, and to an extent that could sometimes mean that we won't be able to have a contest at all, but I was never really a fan of contests anyway, so it doesn't really matter to me that much.

 

[Mike]

Free hosts are brilliant, why would you invest money into something that might never be successful? You can put as much effort as you want into a forum, theres still a chance it may never lift off. Free Forums are just there for you to take a test drive, and if you want to invest money then buy a backup or something like that depending on what host your on. I'd much rather start through a free host rather than take a risk with my money.

Anyway a bit more on topic, Unfortunately theres always going to be trends here and there, if someone adds a mod that someone else likes then of course they will add it, it's not necessarily copying, it's just that the first forum brought that certain mod to the other forum's attention.

People that do copy other people and act like "wannabe's" don't get very far, as it's pretty obvious what they're trying to do.

 

[Justin]

People that do copy other people and act like "wannabe's" don't get very far, as it's pretty obvious what they're trying to do.

My thoughts exactly. :yes: