Starting a New Forum Website

[TheFoxRocks]

Hey guys and gals,

I was hoping this community could help me. I have been reading on here a little to try and figure things out and understand that some things have recently changed with the XenForo platform if I understand correctly. I am nearly new to website design and the only way I can accomplish it is with software that helps you do so. I took some Dreamweaver and it is just not something I wanted to invest a lot of time learning. That brings me to my first question.

If it helps I would love my website to be similar to www.lawnsite.com for reference.

1.) If I reserve my own website with a domain provider can I simply implement the XenForo software/client over my website or do I need to lease my website at XenForo? I have no clue how this works.

2.) I am making this community because I and others see a need for it. However, with time I hope that I will be able to generate ad revenue and I heard that using XenForo has big advantages in this category. Is this true?

3.) I guess my final question is whether or not this is something that one person with limited knowledge will be able to figure out? Like most websites I plan to appoint moderators and such to help out but I guess a lot of the work will come from me using the software.

4.) Also I would like to know about cost, I did a little research and saw the plans seem to start at $60.00 a month. I saw there is also free software available as well. So could I start out with the free software and achieve what I want and if I begin to get more traffic or expand will I be able to easily transition?

You guys do not need to answer every question. It would be great if you knew something about a particular topic and shed some light on it for me. I appreciate any aid in advance.

 

[Suzanne O]

Registration and hosting are not the same thing. What they are talking about is using namecheap's hosting services, not using them as a domain registrar. Perhaps they are perfectly fine as a registrar but suck at hosting.

And I am a case in point. My domain is registered through one company but my hosting with another (my host's rates for domain renewal are higher).

My sites are both registered and hosted by namecheap.
I've tried expensive rip offs that have scammed me in the past.
Have had no trouble with namecheap.

 

[Suzanne O]

I don't read reviews - i go by experience.
I for one would not bother with siteground, cloud access, or aws amazon because they rip you off and will suspend your accounts if you have yet to pay their overpriced plans.
Namecheap is worth it these days as they use cpanel which is compatable with both vbulletin and xenforo.

 

[Suzanne O]

Had a look at bbpress the other day. It's a big mess.
might be better to keep your wordpress site as a blogger mate.

 

[Suzanne O]

Buddyboss isn't bbpress, though it is compatible with it's tables and many addons.

No it's some addon that supposed to make it look better. BBpress is attrocious in itself.
looks too old fashioned.

 

[Suzanne O]

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[Suzanne O]

Joomla & WordPress Hosting, Support and Tutorials

A complete web hosting platform built specifically for Joomla & WordPress. We provide written and video tutorials, training, support and optimized cloud hosting environments.

www.cloudaccess.net

there's three that i've used.

read up on them. Instead of being negative.

 

[Suzanne O]

Basically, but also the whole argument of CPanel being compatible with vBulletin & XenForo, that one just really doesn't make sense. What control panel it is has nothing to do with vBulletin & XenForo compatibility, I've used custom panels by the host, Plesk, CPanel & Direct Admin - which all worked fine so as long as the server provided PHP & MySQL services.

You need some sort of cpanel for your forums and sites buddy. Otherwise you will have issues with keeping them up.
Namecheap craps over cloud access which i used to be with.
cloud access has no cpanel. It's sister site called site ground does but is restrictive.

 

[Suzanne O]

You're not understanding what I'm saying at all.

No mate because all you're doing is shoving your opinion down my throat. Please do not do this.
I'm happy with namecheap and have found them to be the best value for both hosting and registering.
All i say to the OP try Namecheap if you don't like it go elsewhere.

 

[Suzanne O]

Just ask @digitalpoint who had wordpress

 

[Suzanne O]

NameSilo is great for domain registration, and I have used it for years with all my current domains. As for hosting, I go with A2 Hosting which is not cheap, but you get what you pay for. They do have great deals on occasion.

Change both to namecheap and you only have to pay once a year.
Not bad for $15 a year.
Stella hosting costs $60 a year.

 

[Suzanne O]

Has anyone tried to turn XenForo into a full-fledged social network? I know that XF is essentially a framework, but I'm not sure if anyone has ever tried to go the whole way with XF and morph it into something that comes to resemble a Facebook-lite.

Obviously something like that would cost a bit of money.





Have you ever worried about having trolls on your board who also go a bit silly with image uploads? How do you combat that?

I know that some other Xenforo forums (like Neogaf and Resetera) don't allow you to post threads until you've posted a certain number of comments. The first few comments by a new user are also pre-moderated before being published.

Have you ever thought about imposing image upload / post / comment limits? For example:
User can't upload more than 30 images per day.
User can't post more than 5 threads per day.
User can't post more than 50 comments per day.

I'm currently building out my website using WordPress. I have every intention of replacing the comments section with a full-fledged forum. With that being said however, I'm not sure as to whether I should go with a WP only solution (like BBPress), or whether I should be looking to integrate XenForo.

Wordpress is hopeless

 

[Suzanne O]

Haha very funny many people not liking my comments how rude. How disgusting

 

[Suzanne O]

I've been to heaps of sites.
Some of the best ones are hopeless.
Godaddy is rubbish. No cpanel
AWS Amazon rips you off. $238 a month just for their ec3 after free tier expires.
wix is a load of trash.
As is knownhost.

 

[Suzanne O]

Knownhost is trash? I've been using them for over 10 years. I've had nothing but excellent service. I've used both their vps and shared hosting.

Yep. As are all those that share hosting.