hey can anybody here tell me a good way to make a forum. right now my free forum sucks and i want to make a big one like this so that a lot of poeple could talk and do whatever. but my free forum www.freeclipsandgames.com is not very good and it is run by godaddy. so can anybody tell me a good thing to use like php or whatever else you can use to make one. that would be helpful.

building a good forum from scratch is something that is going to take many many months for an experienced coder. I would suggest looking into some of the pre-existing. This forum appears to be a v-bulletin forum that is going to expensive to purchase a liscence too but there are plenty of other alternatives. PHPBB is the one that I like I've used it many times and it's very user friendly.

You will also need to consider you will need php and mysql support for most all forums just make sure you have this.

As for me I like vBulletin very much. Through it's not very cheap but rather reliable and users friendly. You may use also IPB. It's also very popular and has enough advantages.

Running a forum is one thing, getting people to participate in the forum is another. Maybe you could look into the free forum like blackhawkpowers suggested PHPBB or you try SMF.

You also need a good topic, say like your current forum you choose free games, you need to design the forum to reflect that. I believe smf or PHPBB if you do a search in yahoo you can get many free templates which you can use.

Now the hard part, getting people to participate in your forum. For starters, you can always ask the people you know to participate in your forum.

I think that the main thing is popularity of your forum. First time you shoul provide paymant for posts on your forums (I advice you creare short list of forums). Than you will provide favorable situation for forum members.

i wish you luck...just so you'll know what you're up against...95% of forums do NOT make it. and end up having fewer posts then you see on this thread.

making a forum sucsessfull takes a lot more effort then making a good website.

users actualy need to be active and that is alot to ask these days...most users zoom thrugh websites in lighning speed, they are quick to judge and fly away to the next forum...you would need to use some of your friends and family to get some activity going...then advertise (sorry...you will have to open that wallet) or promote it on other forums and blogs and wait....wait...wait...(this is kind'a like fishing...needs alot of patiance).


someone once said "if you build it ...they will come" (gues who?).

i don't think he new much about building a forum. (then again can't blame him...the internet did not exist then).


let's some this up:

1. find a good nitch
2. build an up to date forum
3. define good categories (subforums)
4. get some posts from friend.
5. advertise
6. prey.



sorry forgot 4 1/2 submit and build link popularity.

do not give up...you just might end up in that 5% of those who make it.

It would be interesting to hear recommendations of those who started webmaster-talk.com...