New Steam engine forum

[JW]

Hi All,

 Its been a while since ive logged in on fieldlines...

The last time I checked in the board was having some login problems after a recent upgrade. Things seem to be working pretty good, actually what I wanted to reply on was one of TomW's diary entries, pretty cool I thought at the time. Anyhow tonite, was just so glad to be able to login thru my original account, and be able to post, good job guys (Dan's).

Ok, so I have decided to make the plunge and host my own "flash steam engine forum", its been set up for about 2 weeks, spam, spam, spam, ....

I now have the forum set so that I decide weither to activate a new user account, frankly, I got sick of deleting posts with obscene links, on sunday morning.

So far the bbphp forum is managable for me to ADMIN. I used a custom template, I think it works ok, users can upload picture's like is done here. I went with this forum software, because my hosting company, had a built in option to install it, so I felt a clean install was better than configuring the SQL database and all that myself.

I have also recently updated the main site, a link to the forum is there-

http://www.flashsteam.com

direct link to the forum is here, the 2 sites link back and forth-

http://4cyclesteamengine.com/forum

Wishing everyone the best, Happy holidays All

JW

[TomW]

SPAM requires constant vigilance with a zero tolerance policy.

You need a hired gun with the disposition of a Rotwieler junkyard dog.

Sound familiar?

Sticking a 24, 48 or 72 hour delay on new account activation will help, too. It cuts down on knee jerk questions, too.

A couple motivated admins / editors need to read the forum regularly and never, ever think "thats cute, maybe it is innocent" Just ruthlessly kill ANY SPAM and the account it posted under.

I checked into some of those free "forum farms" and after reading a few I decided they are just honey pots set up by or for spammers. They seem to have built in holes that let them in or perhaps a back door method for doing a flanking move on any defenses the "owner" of the forum sets up. The forced ads are bad enough but the big WELCOME SPAMMERS! sign on the front door made me just forget using them. Something to think about.

I did not check yours but anonymous postings will be a spammer super highway so don't allow it.

Just free advice from fighting it for a decade or so here and on the 2 other fora I help keep afloat.

Good Luck with it.

Tom

[JW]

Hi Tom:

Thanks for the advice its welcome...

Since what I setup is so new, I have options at this point. What does it take to install Scoop on a hosting server. Ive always liked the format of this forum. Also, I do like the idea of google synd and real ads, I dont see that potential down the road with what im working with.

Jeremy

[TomW]

JW;

I would avoid Scoop at all costs. It is a bloated. old, barely maintained mess of software with very few folks that can [or would] run it.

Given the choice I would use Simple Machines forum software. It is well supported, runs on simple hardware and seems quite capable. One forum I am a part of that uses it gets hundreds of posts per day and it has all the buzzers and bells you could want. Internal messaging between members, shows post counts which is a good tool for seeing who is who, the ability to edit and remove your posts, easy administration options just a nice, easy and simple forum software for the users. None of this waiting for ages while Scoop wastes time hunting down the page it should serve up.

Every Simple Machines Forum I visit has lightning fast response times and is just a joy to use. Completely opposite of my experience with Scoop run sites.

Not interested in starting a forum war but you asked.

In its glory days of say ten years ago Scoop was pretty good but it has just gotten too complex for anyone not wearing a geek hat and a pocket protector full of pens to keep running smoothly.

As an example, look right here. This is the latest and greatest version of Scoop and hosted by pros who supposedly are Scoop experts. It has been busted for months now. Only one way to read that. It Sucks.

If people who are supposedly experts at Scoop sites and hosting cannot sort it out how will you?

Again, you asked.

Tom

[ADMIN]

Good answer, Tom.

I wholeheartedly agree about Scoop!

Heh heh heh. It's been driving me nuts.....

There are some AWESOME Scoop sites out there. An example would be http://dailykos.com/

They work so well for a huge number of users because they have a programmer on staff who made all the broken code work, and work fast.

It is VERY likely that in the next few weeks we will move everything here to either SMF or phpBB software.

ADMIN

[bob g]

simple machines forum is by far the most user friendly forum i have ever taken part in,

it is quick and easy to setup, easy to admin and moderate, and has all the bells and whistles as Tom stated.

i set one up about 3 months ago, and aside from a couple of issues related mainly to me

being in a hurry, and not being a geek we had some spammer problems, but got that sorted out with the help of one of our members.

if this place moves to another forum software, my vote is for SMF hands down!

bob g

www.microcogen.info

[gizmo]

My own forum uses the Webwiz software, its another freebie, ASP based with a Access Database. The version I have is about 5 years old, and I've modified it to do what I want ( delete spamers, image resizing, etc ), but I have the advantage in that I write software for a living and have about 15 years experience in ASP and even longer in VB coding.

I've heard good reports about phpBBS. If I had to start again I would go for a PHP based system, simply because it will work on Linux and Microsoft systems, so I wouldn't be tied down to one hosting operating system.

Either way, stick with a system that uses the common high level languages, like VB ASP or PHP. That way it will be easy to find a programmer to help you out and who wont charge an arm and a leg. Also you want a system that uses a portable database, like Access or dBase. I can download my database, manually go through the records or fix any problems at home, then upload it to the server. Not easy to do wth a SQL or MySQL database. It also makes backups easier.

Glenn

[JW]

Hi DanF,

Its encouraging for me to hear that your considering the phpBB software. It was pretty easy for me to install, and seems pretty solid. For now, I have registration set up so I have to activate new user accounts it seems to stop the spamming.

I would like too at some point, "if" the site gains popularity, to put up some ad space. Doesnt sound like you have concerns about the existing ads transferring over to the new software. Although I see ads on the SMF site I dont see any on the phpBB site, atleast I dont remember any there. I figure the demographics of a steam engine forum may never become as "main stream" such as this site is, you and DanB have really done a good job. Well, keep warm up there on the mountain, greetings from Miami Fl, if your ever visiting the Florida Keys look me up... Im just north of there.

Jeremy

[gizmo]

About the ads. Part of the google adsense ageement means the administrators cant discuss the ads publicaly. They can not say "Click the ads". The problems come up when forum members start discussing the ads.

For example, there might be a google ads for magnet motor plans. Most of us know this is bogus, so we ignore it. But some forum members might start discussing the ad in a post, and even suggest to the administrators they block said ad. This is an administrators worst nitemare. As part of the agreement, they cant bring attention to the ads in any way, so that means they cant acknowledge or discuss the offending ad. I did have the problem pop up on my own forum, so I decided to swap the ads for newsfeeds for members. Non members ( guests ) still see the ads. Members only see news feeds for the renewable energy industry.

This is something you might want to consider. Here at Fieldlines the ads are displaye to members, and it seams to work fine, but on other sites it could cause problems.

You will need someone who can make the changes to the forum software. Its simple enough, if a member is loged in, show news feed, else show google ad.

Glenn

[ghurd]

So what you are saying is if readers CLICK the adds,

then the hosts get money for things like keeping the forum operating?

But the hosts can't come right out and tell people to click the adds?

Even if clicking around in some of the ads gets some money for the hosts,

while collecting that money from some of the scammers?

G-

[willib]

Hi Glenn , in your opinion , do you think that all the data from years of fieldlines could be transported to a PHP BBS ?

or would the Admins have to start over with PHP , and just store  fieldlines on a read only basis?

[JW]

Hi Glenn,

 What your saying makes sense, heres a link to a site thats providing ad space, but its not a forum.

http://www.animatedengines.com

What you see there, as far ad space, is what im interested in, basically the same type of ads you would see on utube. Im hopeing such a thing would be somewhat forum neutral.

Jeremy

[JW]

http://www.steamautomobile.com/ForuM/read.php?1,14448,14455#msg-14455

Jeremy

[dnix71]

I admin on a Yuku computer forum. We moved when MSN shut down their groups.

We have to manually approve new members and there are ads unless we pay $54 a year (all at once to get the discount).

Making people wait for approval works well, but we don't have to run a server or maintain the software, Yuku does that for us.

[Volvo farmer]

We all need to make a living. But if Coke promised to paint my old Volvo Duett for free with their logo and I knew i could make revenue off of it, I might just decline and keep it the light green that it is for the sake of pride.

I know what google ads mean to the folks here, they mean revenue, a paycheck. and I don't hold that against them. Life is tough in the mountains. Personally I find google ads unobtrusive for the most part and I click on all the ones that say "Volvo"

O-o

[gizmo]

Yeah it could be done easily, using a hand written script. The hard bit is finding someone who can do it.

Internet forums are relatively low bandwidth software applications. Even at its busiest, a forum only needs to serve maybe a hundred or so pages per second, onto a low speed data network. The database is only small compared to a typical business database.

Importing data into a new database is straight forward for someone to writes code. Even transfering from different platforms, say MS Access on a Microsoft PC to a mySQL database on a linux PC is easy to do, but only if the structure of both databases is clearly understood.

And thats the big if. You would need someone who has a clear understanding of the Scoope database, and the phpBBS database.

Glenn

[gizmo]

Yes I agree. I would have preferred to leave the ads on my forum for members as well as non-members, but my members kept posting messages about the ads onto the forum, so to play it safe I removed ads for members. It was only a small hit to revenue, a couple of percent, so I've left it that way.

Either way, its best to not discuss the ads. There is actually a lot more to it that just ads and clicks, its a real science how it works.

If you see something that genuinely interest you, go ahead and have a look. Otherwise, just ignore them.

Glenn

[DamonHD]

Trust me G, as an owner of AdSense sites, it just isn't funny, and the scope for malice is huge.  Have a look over at another site I participate in (publisher-world.com) or let's discuss this on email.

Rgds

Damon