I'm shopping around for a new forum. Would you be so kind as to let me know what forum features you like (in this forum and others) and what forum features you hate? What would you like to see? What can you live without?

Please note that there are a lot of considerations to take into account so I probably can't please everybody, but I am interested in your input. I would also appreciate links to any forum you particularly like.

-- Anonymous, January 17, 2000

Answers

What does annoy me here is one of the HTML features you've probably noticed that every time I try to link my site from here it seems to just ignore that closing /a tag, so that the link carries over to my name on the next line. If I could figure out a solution to that, I'd be quite satisfied. Otherwise, nothing wrong with this one that I can see.

http://www.geocities.com/jgwr

-- Anonymous, January 17, 2000

Although it seems to have done it right this time...

-- Anonymous, January 17, 2000

If you're willing to invest about $69, you can buy a 1 year lease on a UBB - which I'm quite fond of.

You'll need CGI/Perl access on your server.

-- Anonymous, January 17, 2000

Actually, UBB is now about $80 for a one year lease (or $170 to purchase it outright). That's more than I really wanted to spend for one year.

-- Anonymous, January 17, 2000

The feature that sorts forum topics in order of most recent entry is one I would have a hard time suffering through life without.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

I'll gladly kick in some money.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

I like threaded forums much better than this kind, but that probably isn't the kind you want to switch to (hard for me to tell because, not being much of a geek, I don't understand a lot of computer jargon and don't want to).

I loved the way CompuServe threaded forums worked, and have never seen anything remotely that good on any other service or on the web in general.

But at least the web forums that show the threads visually by the message titles are easier to follow than this kind, where each thread is just a long list of messages, with the most recent at the bottom.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

I don't hate threaded forums; I just hate it when you have to backtrack to read the rest of the thread. Most of the threaded options I've looked at allow you to go back to other sub-threads without backtracking, though.

I don't think UBB supports threaded discussions, but it is a really nice interface.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

The forum I grew to love was one that is offered (FOR FREE) by Matt's Script Archives. (I don't remember the URL off hand, but perhaps the link that I'm about to provide has a link.)

The MajorMUD forum that I used to frequent on a daily basis uses this forum, HOWEVER, I've seen this forum used by other people, and the MUD one really is the best because they obviously had someone code a script to tweak it so it worked the way they wanted it to.

The forum is here: here.

Wow. They've changed it even more since the last time I was there six months ago. (=

Anyway, the most recent posts are at the top, and if you click on a topic, you'll see that all the responses to that topic are under the post that you click on.

It's HIGHLY customizable (colours, script and everything), so I guess the main drawback to this would be not having the ability to customize it.

But if you do have the ability, this forum would rock. (=

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

Okay, the MUDForum didn't link to the place to get the forum, so I FOUND IT! (=

Matt's script archives are here.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

Keith Dawson (TBTF) recommended Take it Offline to me a little while back. I've been meaning to look into it, but haven't yet. Gee, it'd be nice if Beth did all the work first so I didn't have to. ;-) (I'm also not crazy about Greenspun's forum at my site, but it suffices for now.)

The URL is www.takeitoffline.com

LIM

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

There's a BB program called Discus that I was looking into a while back. I eventually gave up because I didn't have the right sorts of access to my server for it, but it looked like a good program. You can find it at DiscusWare. If that doesn't work for you, you can find a list of Perl BBS at The CGI Resource Index.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

Dear Beth,

I need to tell you this:

You have one of the absolute best website journal-diaries in the world. (Hey, I really feel that way. Anyone who thinks I am just kissing ass, you can kiss mine.) I love your forum section exactly the way it is, so much I tried to copy it on my journal website (and I failed miserably. No one ever adds anything to it. Look how much response you get!)

And now you want to improve on it. How much better can it get?

I remain your humble, kiss-ass fan, Zoomer 'ALIVE AT FORTY-FIVE! GETTING MY KICKS AT FORTY-SIX! http://members.xoom.com/fortyfiver/aliveat45.htm (Yes, this a damn plug for my site that rarely gets any attention and pales greatly, tremendously(!) when put next to 'Bad Hair Days'.)

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

I like the forum the way it is - I prefer this type to the threaded type. (but I understand you have reasons for switching.)

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

I've enjoyed UBB forums in several different websites. I don't know if the free version would do everything you want, but it's worth looking at if money is an option.

I've also seen the discus forums working well. I think it's free, too. it might take more management than you want to do.

for the web, forums with messages all on one page is good: less back and forth, fewer hits on servers, easier to read.

threaded forums splinter discussions -- good on usenet, not so good where you want a general conversation thing happening.

one other option: if you get an account at http://www.sff.net/ they throw in a usenet-style newsgroup on their server. I read and post in some friends' groups that are hosted there.

Anita of Anita's BOD and Anita's LOL

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

Discus is highly customizable, but not threaded. Comparable in many ways to UBB. There's a free version and a pay version. The installation is fairly automated. Probably worth playing with, if you're not absolutely committed to threaded discussion.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

Sigh. I know nothing about code or PERL or whatever... can barely tell my HTML from my BUTT... I only have one forum-related request.

Please, could you take it out of the frame or something, so I don't have to do weird back-and-forth, thisaway thataway scrolling to see the whole width of my text and reread messages for typos? What is that about? And Greenspun won't let me open the forum frame in a new window.

Argh. Thank you, from us little, unsophisticated people.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

Sorry about that -- but the whole reason I use frames is to keep the forum linked to the rest of the site. You can open the forum in a new window the same way you open any other link in a new window if you're using a lower resolution on your monitor. You might also try changing your default font settings. I know there is some horizontal scrolling at 640 x 480 now, but according to my logs very few people use that resolution anymore. If you're one of the people who does use that resolution, I recommend you open the forum in a separate window. However, one of the reasons I want to switch to another forum is to avoid the necessity of frames.

-- Anonymous, January 19, 2000

Hey Beth -- Honestly, I like this format better than other forum formats. I've used UBB. I've installed Discus. I have Matt's WWWBoard running on one of my sites.

All of them have drawbacks, all of them have pluses.

Both UBB and Discus take a while to install. You have to know what you're doing with your server and even when you do, it's a pain in the patooty.

UBB is expensive and both UBB and Discus require registration which is a big turn off for me when trying to participate in a forum.

The WWWBoard is pretty easy to install if you know how to manipulate UNIX. You don't need to know any Perl to install, though of course knowing it is helpful.

My problem with the WWWBoard is that you need to occasionally archive your threaded discussion pages or you will wind up with subtopics pushing off of the page.

As for Discus -- I really liked some of the features it had, but it was a very complex upload/setup.

And like UBB asks users to set up an account to post. I prefer boards that are more free-flowing -- that's half the fun of it though of course this can leave a site vulnerable to bad posters who put up nasty stuff.

On the scrolling off the screen issue HERE -- I'm at 1024x768 and if I have my windoze start menugoing down the right hand side of my screen, which is where I prefer to keep it, the right hand side of the forum posting entry box gets hacked off. So it's not just a 640x480 issue. I think it's more a monitor issue.

I have a 15" Mac monitor here and a 12" (or something) at home. If I move the Start Menu, then I get the full frameset here at work, but at home it still loses a few inches.

Both of my computers are set at 1024x768 resolution.

I actually really _like_ the Greenspun format and was considering getting a Greenspun forum myself.

But some of the other solutions folks have mentioned here might work well for your situation.

I'd be more in favor of the free WWWBoard, just because it's free, but it's not as customizable as some of the others if you don't know Perl. So you might lose some of your notification options.

So that's my .02 cents

-- Beth K. owl@littleowl.com

-- Anonymous, January 19, 2000

Oh -- and to actually answer the _question_

What features do I like?

I like it simple.

I don't give a fig about being able to post html. I don't care about being notified. The only feature I kind of like to have is the ability to verify and edit posts. I also like being able to change the colors/graphics whatever (another limitation of UBB if you don't buy the full version, or you happen to know how to hack it a little bit.)

Call me old-fashioned, but I just like the basics.

-- Anonymous, January 19, 2000

I like simple, too. I'll tell you all what I like, so you don't get too worried about what I've got planned here:

• Customization. I'd like to have this on my own server so I can have a menu bar that will get you back to the rest of the site without a lot of back-tracking, which is why I use the frames. I'd like to change the colors or add a title graphic, just because my Greenspun forum looks like every other Greenspun forum and it's boring.
  
  
• I would really like it if y'all had the ability to edit your own posts. Not that I mind closing a tag or fixing a typo or whatever, but I don't always have e-mail access during the day, so I don't know if someone has made a mistake. I probably get five or six requests a week to change a post for a spelling error or whatever, and I'm happy to oblige, but it would be much easier if you could do it yourselves.
  
  
• Spellcheck would be nice. Not a requirement, but I'm a rotten speller and I'd like it for my own posts.
  
  
• I do like the mail notification. I like for that to be optional, because some people don't want to be bothered, but other people were going nuts when Greenspun temporarily disabled notifications a few weeks ago.
  
  
• I would prefer that you folks did not have to register to post, but I'm not seeing that as a prohibitive issue as long as I can set it to allow anonymous registration.
  
  
• I don't usually care about these things, but optional user profiles might be nice. You all know all about me, but unless you have a journal, I don't know a thing about you, and you don't know a thing about each other.
  
  
• I don't want ads. I don't want someone else's political messages flashing across the bottom of this screen. Greenspun tosses those in now and then, and I don't want them.
  
  
• I don't care that much about HTML, but I do like it if users can insert a link if they want to. And the ability to use bold and italics is kind of nice.

-- Anonymous, January 19, 2000

I like that it automatically puts my name and all in the fields. Everything else is negotiable.

-- Anonymous, January 21, 2000

I don't know much about forums, but I would really like it if when you hit the link from your email it came back to that particular topic, not the entire forum. Is this possible?

-- Anonymous, January 27, 2000