Very much LOST

[tomatoman]

To be honest, after coming to this site and spending some time looking around I feel like someone with a Grade 2 education that just stumbled into a MENSA meeting.

At age 67, I'm no stranger to computers, the internet or on-line forums. However, as someone who would now like to start up a forum of his own, I have a ton of questions. I have no experience in running a forum other than acting as a Mod on one site. Therefore, all of the terminology used on this site is akin to trying to decipher a long, dead language. This is not to say that I am incapable of learning but I don't know where to begin.

I'd like to purchase the current version of the software with a view to putting my site together but I'm wondering just how steep the learning curve will be. In addition, I realize that buying the XF BETA version is simply a single step in the process of ending up on-line with my project. It would be nice if I had a much clearer understanding as to what the first step would be and then the steps that must follow to ultimately reach my goal. Of course, there is also the issue of initial costs as well as ongoing costs and once again, I have no clue about those either.Disclosure on that aspect would be most welcome too.

Perhaps I am asking a lot. I don't know. However, if I don't ask..... I'll never know...... so here I am.......looking for all the assistance that forum members and XF staff are willing to provide. I thank you for your anticipated assistance.

 

[Paul B]

I would say shared VPS is even too much for what he has stated will be the traffic levels.
A shared hosting plan would be my suggestion.
That works for me and I have about 1,000 members and 2,000 posts per month.

 

[Elizabeth]

Dave,
Small, medium and large are all subjective terms as I'm sure you understand. To help you help me, perhaps I should do what I can to put some perspective on this subject. The Yahoo Case, Colt, Ingersoll forum dates back to 1999 and considered to be the most successful site for these marques. The current membership claims fewer than 6000 but on any given day, there are perhaps a max of 30 different post'ers making active use of the site. Another major site is My Tractor Forum that has grown to over 30,000 members but that place discusses tractors that range from lawn size to full blown farm tractors. In addition, there are a large number of additional forums that discuss all sorts of things. It grew so large that the original owner ended up selling it to a company that is now using it as a revenue generation tool.

The Yahoo forum likely sees 10 to 30 posts per day on the board. The MTF site may see double that on a good day but I've seen days when there might be only two posts.

Does that help explain things?

I think I found your major competitor as far as the forum side and here is what their statistics read: Threads: 3,077 Posts: 28,456 Members: 1,602 Active Members: 389. Their forum will be a year old in January. So given those, we need to figure where you are now to where you might be a year from now...and find you a shared host big enough but not expensive.

 

[Edrondol]

Fair enough. I just have had too many issues with shared when someone else goes batty and kills their allotted bandwidth. On a VPS there's more built-in safeguards. At least in my experience.

 

[Elizabeth]

Fair enough. I just have had too many issues with shared when someone else goes batty and kills their allotted bandwidth. On a VPS there's more built-in safeguards. At least in my experience.

Yes, but.....most of us start there....heck I started with geocities back long ago and went thru my far share of shared hosting before going the vps/dedicated route.

 

[Paul B]

Fair enough. I just have had too many issues with shared when someone else goes batty and kills their allotted bandwidth. On a VPS there's more built-in safeguards. At least in my experience.

That can be the case. Fortunately I have had almost zero issues with my shared host, I couldn't be more pleased with them, bearing in mind the cost which is around £50 per annum.
For that I get 50GB bandwidth, 5GB disk space, cPanel, unlimited sub-domains, SQL databases and email addresses.

Ultimately it comes down to cost and whether the OP is prepared to pay for a shared VPS or just shared.
Only he can make that decision.

 

[tomatoman]

Could we please talk about bandwidth for a moment?

Aside from creating the regular forum, I would like to put an end to the endless redundant questions like I am asking in this thread. ROFL Instead of having the usual FAQ section, I want to have a menu on the side where a newbie can select a particular topic , click on it and then.......not only read pertinent information but also view one or more photos that will help make things clearer for him. I don't know how such features would affect bandwidth. I don't know if XF is structured in a way that it will allow me to do this but that's my goal. After 10 plus years of reading "How do I change the oil in my hydraulic system?", I want to find a better way to provide such answers to members. There's some irony here since I am now the newbie and am likely fielding questions that have been asked and answered many times in the past. However, like most newbies, I really don't want to have to struggle with searches in archives.

Oh....and while I am on that topic, it would be my intention to purge my archives at 18 months and delete the previous six months worth of posts/threads. I would keep only the threads that were truly informative. The crap would become cyber fertilizer.

 

[Paul B]

Large files such as photos/images, etc. will use a lot more bandwidth than regular forum posts which are predominantly text.
Even so, I think you would struggle to get anywhere near 50GB for the first few months at least, if not much longer.

If you do you can always upgrade to 100GB per month or more or then look at a shared VPS.

To get an idea of prices, although it varies wildly between hosts, this is the kind of price you can expect to pay for shared hosting:
http://www.eukhost.com/cpanel-web-hosting.php

And this is for VPS:
http://www.eukhost.com/vps-hosting.php

As you can see, the difference is between paying £80 per annum for the highest shared package and £290 per annum for the cheapest VPS package.

 

[Elizabeth]

Could we please talk about bandwidth for a moment?

Aside from creating the regular forum, I would like to put an end to the endless redundant questions like I am asking in this thread. ROFL Instead of having the usual FAQ section, I want to have a menu on the side where a newbie can select a particular topic , click on it and then.......not only read pertinent information but also view one or more photos that will help make things clearer for him. I don't know how such features would affect bandwidth. I don't know if XF is structured in a way that it will allow me to do this but that's my goal. After 10 plus years of reading "How do I change the oil in my hydraulic system?", I want to find a better way to provide such answers to members. There's some irony here since I am now the newbie and am likely fielding questions that have been asked and answered many times in the past. However, like most newbies, I really don't want to have to struggle with searches in archives.

Oh....and while I am on that topic, it would be my intention to purge my archives at 18 months and delete the previous six months worth of posts/threads. I would keep only the threads that were truly informative. The crap would become cyber fertilizer.

Bandwidth...most hosts will promise unlimited, don't believe them. There is always a limit. It's like water coming out a sprinkler waterhose. the more holes in it, the less comes out the end.

Yes, there is a place you can do things you ask about a FAQ section, you can do stickies or even better, use pages. And Brogan has some great templates for those.

 

[tomatoman]

Pages sounds like a much better method providing those pages can be accessed via a menu either on the main board or a link on the main board that would take the user to the menu. A few stickies at the top of a forum board are OK but more than that becomes a PITA as far as I'm concerned. So if XF is structured in such a way that I can accomplish my objectives, then XF is sounding more and more like the correct choice for me.

 

[Paul B]

Here's an example of the Pages feature: http://xenforo.com/community/pages/example-page/

The menu on the side is optional and can be configured per page for sibling and child nodes.

 

[tomatoman]

Brogan,
Thanks for the link.

What I am about to say is being done with the very best of intentions to alert you, Dean and others that the explanation given in that link make about as much sense to all the newbies like me as this does.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLDgQg6bq7o


With no disrespect intended, there are probably 20 words in that link that are not currently part of my vocabulary. Believe me when I tell you that I fully understand the reasons for computer-speak and programming-speak. It happens all the time in niche technologies. However, I'm willing to bet that there are at least ten other dummies like me who are watching this thread in earnest in the hopes of having this strange new world revealed to them in a way they can understand. I can remember back when I bought my IBM XT with a whopping 20meg hard drive and the $500.00 software package expected me to memorize countless keyboard strikes to make the DOS do what I wanted it to do. Then along came Steve and Steve with a mouse and we haven't looked back since. While I agree that you may not be able to simplify things to a mouse click, I think that your crew is going to have to find a way to convey information in a far more user-friendly fashion.

This is not to say that I am throwing in the towel but if I don't tell you this now, I may forget to tell you just how seemingly overwhelming the language is to a novice once I begin to become more like the rest of you.

Thank you for listening to this important announcement. We can now resume our regularly scheduled programming.

 

[Elizabeth]

Brogan,
Thanks for the link.

What I am about to say is being done with the very best of intentions to alert you, Dean and others that the explanation given in that link make about as much sense to all the newbies like me as this does.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLDgQg6bq7o


With no disrespect intended, there are probably 20 words in that link that are not currently part of my vocabulary. Believe me when I tell you that I fully understand the reasons for computer-speak and programming-speak. It happens all the time in niche technologies. However, I'm willing to bet that there are at least ten other dummies like me who are watching this thread in earnest in the hopes of having this strange new world revealed to them in a way they can understand. I can remember back when I bought my IBM XT with a whopping 20meg hard drive and the $500.00 software package expected me to memorize countless keyboard strikes to make the DOS do what I wanted it to do. Then along came Steve and Steve with a mouse and we haven't looked back since. While I agree that you may not be able to simplify things to a mouse click, I think that your crew is going to have to find a way to convey information in a far more user-friendly fashion.

This is not to say that I am throwing in the towel but if I don't tell you this now, I may forget to tell you just how seemingly overwhelming the language is to a novice once I begin to become more like the rest of you.

Thank you for listening to this important announcement. We can now resume our regularly scheduled programming.

tomatoman, I'm not that far behind you in age, I'm 56. I started with my first computer 15 years ago this fall and I am STILL learning. IF it hadn't been for a very good friend who was very willing to help me when I decided to run my own server out of my back bedroom against ALL other's advice, I would probably still be in your boat. But he was willing to take his time and walk me thru all the steps involved. And I am a firm believer in "paying it forward'. I've been doing that ever since.

I try to remember how I felt as a newbie to the vocabulary. If anything I said was over your head and you haven't already called me on it, please let me know so I can do better next time.

 

[Decent60]

A Few things I want to comment on out of personal experience:

• Server Payment Method - Month-to-Month: This is the best way to go about it for more than just if you host screws you over. It's in case that Demand exceeds Supply or in other words, when you have more people visiting than what your host can provide for. This leaves you free to move to another server if the host can't supply anything more at a reasonable cost.
• Bandwidth - How to know when enough is enough: I know most people say, start out small and then increase as you need, and in general it's good, but you also need to look at how well your site is doing not only member wise but also traffic wise. Here is what I mean by that:
  • On one of the sites I help out on, we have about 15 active members that post daily and at the most, 40 members visiting per day. Besides the layout, we really don't have a whole graphics on our site and the entire layout isn't that heavy in terms of file size (less than 500KB all together). However, we do use on average 500MB per day. To be honest, that really isn't a whole lot if members check out dozens of pages at a time. During the weekends, though, that number can go from 2x to 20x a normal day with no more active members on the site. Why is that? This is due to a huge amount of Guests that visit the site. Before our statistic page got taken down (updated on vB and lost it lol), we had anywhere from 2000 to 10,000 unique visitors on our site on the weekends and about 1000 on the week days. A unique visitor really just means a different person whose computer hasn't been on the site before that 24 hour time span. Our previous host couldn't keep up with it at a reasonable price, so we switched to another host that was cheaper that what we were currently paying.

If you own your domain name, that's great! You can do much more that way. One way, I would use it, is to find a free host to start up your site with. This is important for two reasons: You can judge approximately how much bandwidth you'll need each month as well as server space (hard drive space on the server). Second, it will allow you to have your site up and ready until you find a host that suites your needs and fix your budget to accommodate the new server costs.
Free hosts, however, are very fickle to deal with. You hardly get any bells and whistles to play with, there may be ads on your site that doesn't get you any revenue, the speed of the site is diminished a bit and the support isn't the best. I have came across one host, that I use for my backup site, that is free and isn't too bad: http://byethost.com/

But whatever route that you go on, make sure you do have a good plan and do your research well! XenForo is not that demanding on resources can take a good beating, so it doesn't have to be the most fanciest of hosts, but you do need one that won't let you down.

 

[tomatoman]

It is my current intention that no one will be able to read at my site unless they are a member and have signed into the site. I take it that will control the wide bandwidth fluctuations you speak to.

 

[Decent60]

It is my current intention that no one will be able to read at my site unless they are a member and have signed into the site. I take it that will control the wide bandwidth fluctuations you speak to.

Even if they are not members, they still see your front page regardless, which still takes up bandwidth. Some sites give a plain website theme/skin if they are not logged in and then make a great theme/skin to logged in members. Controlling bandwidth is important but if you want your site to also flourish, so is giving them the proper teaser as to what they can expect.

 

[tomatoman]

OK...I have no idea what "website theme/skin" means but I presume that you are saying that all visitors will encounter a page for my site when they click on the URL that brings them to my site. I would call that my "Home Page". Then if they are a member and log in, then the main page for the actual forum will display the actual forum and features.

Hmmm. Do I have it right?

 

[Decent60]

A website theme/skin is the design of it. Generally all sites running XenForo will look essentially the same, but others will have different themes or skins (whichever the forum makers decide to call it).
This webpage shows different styles/themes/skins/whatever-you-want-to-call-it:
http://xfstop.com/stylechooser.html

If a member isn't logged in, they will see what you allow them to see and use features that you allow them to use.
Some sites show brief content to attract people into signing up, like the Announcement, News, FAQ section (just being general).

 

[Elizabeth]

Themes/styles/skins are like the different clothes a forum can wear. Each forum comes with a generic set of "clothes" but we like to personalize our own forums so once it is ours, we either create (sew) or buy or "rent" (download for free) new clothes.

There is an entire section here on site of all the themes listed as well as the people who make themes, both free and custom. http://xenforo.com/community/forums/styles/ but to see the styles, you have to be a member, you can see the section tho.

 

[Dean]

Regarding the name of the forum, is it possible that there is a popular model that you could refer to in the name?

If they made an xyz123 then maybe xyz123talk.com?

 

[tomatoman]

DOMAIN NAMES !!!!

Question 1. If someone does a search and types "Colt garden tractor" into Google and I buy a domain name "Colt Garden Tractors.info" ...... will it show up on the first page?

In other words, is a domain name that essentially fits the search parameter, more powerful than forum content that uses the exact same phrase?


Question 2. I went to Go Daddy.com and did some domain searches. I'm confused about the chart that shows the cost of a particular domain name for different time frames. If I take a certain domain name for 10 years, then is the cost per year 10 times the amount shown in the 10 year box? Or am I being offered a discount for taking it for a 10 year period?