University Forums

[Geoffrey]

http://universityforums.net

Officially launched on August 1, 2012.

 

[RobinHood]

Nice one Geoffrey, I like forums that promote education.

If you want to check out the competition from across the pond to try and get some ideas for yours check out http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/

Nearly 40 million posts, so they must be doing a few things right.

Keep it up man

 

[SportainmentMG]

I think the site looks clean and crisp, however in all honesty I think it is let down by the fact you installed the Social theme and apart from changing the banner you haven't changed anything else.

But overall a good start

 

[Geoffrey]

robinhood, I have actually already been lurking and posting around a bit there.

Sportainment: What else do you want me to do? It's a great theme, I see no reason to mess with something that's already perfect (for my needs anyways). I do plan to get a custom theme eventually though, but I am a poor college student so I have to do things one step at a time and the license and hosting costs obviously come first.

 

[Geoffrey]

You'll now see our new custom theme is active and default on the board. Check it out.

 

[scottglax]

Really like what you've done there. Good luck with the site.

 

[Geoffrey]

Really like what you've done there. Good luck with the site.

Thanks scott. You should join up and chat with us.

 

[Jelly]

Looks pretty good man, keep up the good work!

 

[HenrikHansen]

One of the best designed xenforo sites I have seen. Makes you really want to use Xenforo

 

[Geoffrey]

Thanks, both of you.

 

[Geoffrey]

We want to have 4,000 posts by the end of the month - so we need 125 posts in two days! Will you come help us?

Join us at http://universityforums.net today!

Posts: 3,875 | Threads: 481 | Members: 62 | Newest Member: Tindris << Your name should be here!

 

[LPH]

The new skin is very nice. Good job!

 

[Geoffrey]

The new skin is very nice. Good job!

Thanks Iph.

 

[RWHP]

That is a great looking site. I love the web 2.0 feel to the forum. Very Nice.

 

[Geoffrey]

That is a great looking site. I love the web 2.0 feel to the forum. Very Nice.

Thanks! Why not join and chat with us?

 

[Tom7]

Before I comment, you should know that I'm a newbie researching Xenforo... So I am just some guy with an opinion and not someone who really knows what I am talking about.

However, I love your site. It is so well thought out and intuitive. I have 2 kids in college right now, and a daughter in law and a son in law in college, and I will be emailing them a link to your site for them to check out. I think it is very well done.

My one criticism is the search. Many universities are known by TLAs (three letter acronyms), but your search will not allow searches for strings that are three characters long. For example, if I wanted to search for NYU, BYU, ASU, FSU, etc., your site rudely tells me it won't even try to search for them.

Given the subject of your site, I would look into changing that.

Otherwise, great work.

May I ask where it is hosted? Feel free to private message me if you would rather.

 

[Geoffrey]

Thanks Tom7. I look forward to seeing your kids on the site.

I'll look into changing the search character limit, though I'm not sure if I can do that or not.

As for hosting, it says in the footer of the forum (along with a link) but it's Empire Hostings. Note that I'm not required by the host to add a link or hosted by line, I just did because they're that awesome.

 

[sforum]

My one criticism is the search. Many universities are known by TLAs (three letter acronyms), but your search will not allow searches for strings that are three characters long. For example, if I wanted to search for NYU, BYU, ASU, FSU, etc., your site rudely tells me it won't even try to search for them.

I believe that this is a restriction of MySQL (the complicated stuff in the background that runs forums like XenForo), so unless the forum owner runs their own server/has a lot of control over their implementation of MySQL there's no way round this. My users have also complained about the minimum-character search limit, and the only solution I have found is to implement a Google site search.

Obviously, if I'm wrong, I'm all ears, as I'd love to be able to do 3-letter searches!

 

[Tom7]

As for hosting, it says in the footer of the forum (along with a link) but it's Empire Hostings. Note that I'm not required by the host to add a link or hosted by line, I just did because they're that awesome.

Yeah, I didn't notice that until after I made my post. I also noticed the link to your theme developer and wrote her about doing a theme for me if I go with XenForo, which it's looking like I will.

 

[Tom7]

I believe that this is a restriction of MySQL (the complicated stuff in the background that runs forums like XenForo), so unless the forum owner runs their own server/has a lot of control over their implementation of MySQL there's no way round this. My users have also complained about the minimum-character search limit, and the only solution I have found is to implement a Google site search.

Obviously, if I'm wrong, I'm all ears, as I'd love to be able to do 3-letter searches!

Thanks for your input, but after my post I also discovered that XenForo has a $50 option called "Enhanced Search" that, among other things, has "no minimum word length" on searches.

However, it doesn't look like it will be an option for many as "Only customers with dedicated servers or VPSes will be able to use it."