Adding a forum to an advice website

[Oracle]

I have an 'advice' website for lack of a better general term. I am considering adding a forum to the website.

My main motivation is that I will increase my mailing lists interaction with my website with the assumption that more time spent on my website will lead to more clicks on my affiliate links and the discussions will lead to more gambling and increased affiliate revenue. It will also encourage word of mouth about my website should the forum prove popular.

I am interested in the vBulletin software with my only experience being from a poster viewpoint. It is extremely easy to navigate, has a clean appearance and most forum users are familiar with the format and will be more likely to engage. I particularly like the appearance and functionality of boards.ie - Now Ye're Talkin' and ideally this would be the template for what I have in mind.

I have seen most people on forum software discussions say that vBulletin is no longer the best software to use yet when I question them as to why, not a single reason is given, so I am getting the impression that the masses are simply repeating what they read elsewhere without understanding why.



There would not be a lot of volunteer moderators available, at least for the first few months so I would have to do everything possible to limit the time I have to spend on the forum myself without making things so difficult for the users that they abandon the forum.



The basic functions I would hope to have on the forum would be:

*Have 10 relevant questions asked during the signup process with a drop/tick/radio box with 5 answers for each question for quality control and spam prevention.

*Can't post for 1 hour after registration to limit spam bots and highly emotional first time posters.

*Minimum 20 posts before users can post URLs, send PMs or start threads.

*If a post is reported 10 times it is moved to an admin only section for review and no longer visible to other users. This is the most important feature for me as it would drastically limit my admin/moderator workload.

*"VIP" area for members that reach a minimum number of posts.

*Be able to have bookmaker/casino names automatically hyperlinked to my affiliate account.

*Posters can't edit/delete their posts after 10 minutes.

*I want to disable signatures and avatars.

**If someone posts a top quality post an admin can award them something along the lines of a 'gold star' with the intention being to run a competition where by if you get x gold stars you will receive $Y.





Is vBulletin capable of doing this or can you recommend alternative software.



Thanks in advance.

 

[tryme1]

The basic functions I would hope to have on the forum would be:

*Have 10 relevant questions asked during the signup process with a drop/tick/radio box with 5 answers for each question for quality control and spam prevention.

*Can't post for 1 hour after registration to limit spam bots and highly emotional first time posters.

I don't know the answers to your other questions, but neither of these things you mentioned is a good idea. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that they will kill any chances of success your forum may have.

Firstly, who exactly is going to answer 10 relevant questions just to sign up with a forum. I know I'm not. Life's too short and I can't think of another forum that asks you to do that.

Secondly, I browse lots of forums before I register. I only usually register with a forum if I've got something I want to say. I'm not going to wait an hour to say it - especially if it's a comment on an already existing thread where an hour later the discussion will have moved on.

 

[Guard Dog]

That template is very Facebook-like Clean and easy to read.

From a forum perspective, vBulletin is ok and has lots of mods. Development has taken a bit of a turn for the worst, IMO, with very slow release times with not enough bug fixes. The newest version of vBulletin isn't anywhere as good as previous versions (i.e., we are on 4.x). A ton of vBulletin forum users stay on either 3.x or 4.x because 5.x sucks.

There are plenty of forum softwares out there, vBulletin may be the most popular.. not necessarily the best. The popular SEO package (vbSEO) is no longer supported, no longer updated, and that isn't good either.

 

[Oracle]

Thanks for the replies and advice.

The quality of the posters on the forum is more important than the quantity as I would prefer 10 good posts and 10 average posts than 10 good posts and 90 average posts that dilute the average.

If the quality of posts and information is good, especially in this niche, people will return even for a small quantity of high quality posts.

I don't want 1 post wonders so if someone can't wait an hour to post and doesn't return to the forum that is fine. Hopefully they have allowed me to contact them with promotional emails during the signup process and I will get a lot of them back but once again... quality over quantity. They won't know they will have to wait an hour to post until they complete the sign up process and there should be enough relevant content on the forum that they can keep themselves amused for an hour and when they do post hopefully it will be more beneficial to the community.

Regarding the 10 signup questions I would not have them all on the one page nor would I mention how many questions there are. Answer no. 1 and click next, ect. Once someone has gone to the effort of answering 4 for example they will keep going in the vast majority of cases. This is not about getting 100,000 posters to brag about. 200 regular quality posters would be much preferred... it is not primarily a general discussion forum (although there will be those sections provided for).

If there is any coding required to get the desired forum options I assume it would not be difficult and there would be a lot of suitable coders on elance which is not a problem for me so long as the day to day admin requires minimal coding/technical expertise.

I won't have a lot of time to dedicate to moderating the forum so the members will have to look after themselves and I am always in favour of the members deciding on the tone and content of a forum (aside from liabilous posts) and posts being moved to admin only sections after a number of members report it would be an ideal situation if this can be accommodated.

I have a large mailing list which will give an immediate boost to the forum.

 

[mikebuchanan12]

If you wont be able to fully support and moderate the forum better do not start it, once users see they can do whatever they want it will be a mess

 

[Oracle]

I don't expect a massive number of posts and 30 minutes a day combined with a function for automatically removing posts that have been reported 10 times would take the vast majority of the poor quality/spam posts out of the mix if the spammers even take the time to get past the signup process. Hopefully within 12 months there will be 5-10 volunteer moderators. A lot of the reason behind having the forum is to get regular visitors who will click on the automatically hyper-linked affiliate keywords on the forum so quantity is not as important as quality.

 

[Oracle]

After taking advice on board I have decided not to go ahead with preventing people from posting for an hour after registration.