Main Area and Open Discussion > General Software Discussion

SMF or phpBB... that is the question?

<< < (3/8) > >>

40hz:
Rather than a specific FSN, you might consider setting up a more general purpose social network site and use that in conjunction with your choice of forum/discussion software. Elgg is one possibility. Last I looked they had (or at least had planned) plugin support for the previously mentioned Vanilla and phpBB. Elgg has other plugins as well.

I'm not super wild about social networks in general. But I've come to begrudgingly respect them since they seem to meet the needs of so many people on both ends of the technical spectrum.

Figure it this way: all the "young uns" grew up with sites like Facebook and Twitter. So the closer you can get your site to look and feel like what they're used to, the better chance you have of encouraging their regular participation.

And if you're looking 50+ years down the road, those are the people in your family circle that you'll want to cater to.

Just thinking out loud.  :)

----------

Addendum:

You also might want to consider doing hardcopy "yearbooks" from the info collected at your site to circulate and/or archive. A high quality paper copy may not last forever. But it is an inexpensive, non-volatile, hack-proof storage system that's platform independent and does not require a power source.

Good thing to have around should a cyberwar ever break out.  :tellme:

 8)

mahesh2k:
Few more suggestions if you're interested -

1. FluxxBB
2. PunBB
3. Advanced Electron Forum

These three can replace phpbb in my opinion. I'm more biased towards first two.

CodeTRUCKER:
Few more suggestions if you're interested -

1. FluxxBB
2. PunBB
3. Advanced Electron Forum

These three can replace phpbb in my opinion. I'm more biased towards first two.
-mahesh2k (November 07, 2010, 11:13 AM)
--- End quote ---

Thank you, mahesh2k, for your input.  If you get a chance would you mind offering your views on the strengths/weaknesses and likes/dislikes of your suggestions?

mahesh2k:
PunBB is used by many content sites like squidoo, hubpages etc because of its simplicity. It's fast, easy to use and clutter-free like vanilla. There isn't any ajax based thread posting or member update like in vanilla so you have to add these using extensions if you want.

FluxBB is easy to configure, lots of themes available or you can create from scratch(which is much better). FluxBB and PunBB have a lot of features installed by default in comparison to vanilla. Advanced electron forum is very easy to install but has less features than fluxxbb, punbb and vanilla. AEF is yet to catch other forum softwares in terms of features. I have very limited experience with these three when it comes to security- so not sure about their security side.

Edit: This is link to forum software reviews, much better take on security.


http://www.forum-software.org/forum-reviews

CodeTRUCKER:
...
Just thinking out loud.  :)

----------

Addendum:

You also might want to consider doing hardcopy "yearbooks" from the info collected at your site to circulate and/or archive. A high quality paper copy may not last forever. But it is an inexpensive, non-volatile, hack-proof storage system that's platform independent and does not require a power source.

Good thing to have around should a cyberwar ever break out.  :tellme:

 8)

-40hz (November 07, 2010, 10:57 AM)
--- End quote ---

Hi 40hz,
Somehow I missed your post earlier, but Those are good thoughts and we are in sync with the "yearbook" idea.  Frankly, it looks like that or something like it will probably emerge victorious.  What would be great would be a forum that would allow an annual export which could be intelligently printed as a "yearbook" complete with cross-referencing where needed.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page