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Once you decide to start a community you have to decide which forum software to use. Choosing the best forum software depends on your specific needs, such as ease of use, customization, and community features. Here are some popular options: Discourse: Modern and user-friendly, with features like real-time discussions, mobile support, and extensive plugins. phpBB: A classic, open-source forum software that is highly customizable and has a large community. Vanilla Forums: Offers both open-source and paid versions, known for its clean interface and integration options. Flarum: A lightweight and modern forum software that is easy to set up and customize. Simple Machi…

How many of you have used a software package that wasn't coded in PHP? To me PHP has always been a spaghetti model. All kinds of mish mash that seems to work when put together.There are many options to choose from that don't use PHP. Perl is less used these days. It was what all software packages were coded in at the beginning. Ruby is what Discourse is coded in. If you get into Discourse you can appreciate the elegance of Ruby. ASP and .Net are lesser known. All of the Microsoft tech forums and blogs are coded on the .Net platform. C# i think. In any case if you ever visit technet forums you'll see how powerful .Net is. Especially when paired with SQL Serv…

Background In the past, Discourse has shipped with e-mail normalization off. As a result of this, users can create multiple accounts using the same canonical e-mail, through the use of plus addressing. For example, a user with an account tied to bob@discourse.org is able to create another account tied to bob+again@discourse.org. Discourse comes with the normalize_emails site setting which can be flipped to either allow or disallow this. When turned on, it considers both e-mails above to be the same for purposes of unique account validation, and Bob won’t be able to create the second account. Why are we changing it? We have seen a big increase in spam sign-ups lately, wi…

I have made the transition to IPB on https://bash.zone. The new Invision Community test site is located at: https://testing123.info It is running beta 3 at the moment. If you would like admin access to check it out let me know and I'll send you the test admin log in info.

Before choosing the software to power your forum, take advantage of free trials and demos beforehand. You might blindly choose a software that you end up hating to use. Then, you have to go through the trouble of merging software. Sometimes, you have to use another software just to be able to merge one to another. It can become a nightmare. Test it out first and go with what you love best. What do you all think about this sort of thing?

Thinking back - what was the hardest part about starting your forum? How did you overcome it?

As we move closer to releasing Invision Community 5, I wanted to review a few key features I believe your members will love after you upgrade to Invision Community 5. The all-new editor We have to start with the brand new editor, recoded and redesigned from the ground up. The new editor is not just faster and leaner, but also remarkably user-friendly, ensuring an upgraded experience for your members in Invision Community 5. Your members will love the streamlined toolbar that no longer hides buttons on smaller devices. They'll also appreciate the new emoji and icon panel, which allows them to insert over 1,700 icons to enhance their posts. Content boxes, r…

Hello there, I am Immortal, you can't kill me and I don't die. 😛 I enjoy posting on forums and I have various interests from gaming and watching TV shows to going on trekking. I work as a content writer. Good to be here.

Here’s a simple SEO guideline for newbies to help you get started: 1. Understand SEO Basics What is SEO?: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of optimizing your website to rank higher in search engine results. Importance: Higher rankings lead to more visibility and traffic. 2. Keyword Research Identify Keywords: Use tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ubersuggest, or SEMrush to find relevant keywords for your niche. Long-Tail Keywords: Focus on specific phrases that are less competitive but more targeted. 3. On-Page SEO Title Tags: Include your primary keyword in the title tag. Meta Descriptions: Write compelling meta descriptions that includ…

I've always wanted to build my own forum software. I've considered doing it as a way to teach myself a programming language. If you could build a forum software, what would you use?

If you use Adsense have you seen your income go up and down? I know it can vary hugely for some sites. Some sites do very well and can count on the revenue to be consistent every month. Some get huge rewards one month and next to nothing the next. What can cause that if traffic stream is constant?

In the old days a person could create a forum and drop a few links and almost instantly get users sign up. There were several niches that if you started a community in the niche the site would explode if you put a little work into it. I seen it happen time after time. That was in the peak of forum popularity. It's much harder to get a community off the ground today. It can be done. You have to work hard at it. Gone are the days of old and that's a good thing. Forums that have staff that actively contribute topics are more attractive to people that find the site. If you care about your forum community it will show. User will sign up and soon the community you nur…

Today is a new day. It's time to dedicate some time to your website. What did you do today to promote your site? Did you add content to keep your members interested? Owning a forum community or any website means you have to dedicate time to creating content and promoting the site.

Now that I've been using Invision Community for a few weeks I am getting deeper into the apps that come with it. Tere is so much being offered it's almost overwhelming. I decided to see what I could do with pages the CMS. I was looking in the app at how the basic articles system was set up. Using that as a guide I created a link directory. I bought the scripts that are used here for the link directory. At the time I wanted a solution so that I could replace the one I used when we were on xenforo and the one used here was avaialble. I actually had a license for it so the renewal wasn't bad. In any case I converted SEO Forum to IPB a couple days ago. I then upgraded it…

I have changed the reactions and added a few more. Check them out next time you post.

What forum software have you used that is odd? Odd in terms of no one else is really using it and you just wanted to do something unique?

Over the next few days you will see some improvements for static resources served on our network. Static resources are items like images, videos, JavaScript, CSS, and any other file attachments. These changes do not yet apply to your actual dynamic community pages. We will follow up with more updates on improvements we are making there. Brotli Compression When your browser supports it, all static files will use Brotli compression. Brotli offers a higher compression which often results in faster page load times. WebP Images WebP is an image compression format that offers higher compression for images which also results in faster load times…

Over the next few days you will see some improvements for static resources served on our network. Static resources are items like images, videos, JavaScript, CSS, and any other file attachments. These changes do not yet apply to your actual dynamic community pages. We will follow up with more updates on improvements we are making there. Brotli Compression When your browser supports it, all static files will use Brotli compression. Brotli offers a higher compression which often results in faster page load times. WebP Images WebP is an image compression format that offers higher compression for images which also results in faster load times…

Previously we rolled out Summarize on your Discourse with one-click!. Today we are doing it for AI search. Discourse AI - AI search is now available for Standard, Business, and Free tiers without the need for a 3rd party Large Language Model (LLM) provider. This means Discourse is now providing a hosted open-weights LLM for customers to enable Summarize. How do I enable AI search? You have the power to enable or disable AI search at any time from the What's New section. All related customizations are available within the Discourse AI plugin settings. What does being an experiment mean? This means that the AI feature is subject to change at any time, including its feat…

Previously we rolled out Summarize on your Discourse with one-click!. Today we are doing it for AI search. Discourse AI - AI search is now available for Standard, Business, and Free tiers without the need for a 3rd party Large Language Model (LLM) provider. This means Discourse is now providing a hosted open-weights LLM for customers to enable Summarize. How do I enable AI search? You have the power to enable or disable AI search at any time from the What's New section. All related customizations are available within the Discourse AI plugin settings. What does being an experiment mean? This means that the AI feature is subject to change at any time, including it…