Posts by Ravenfreak

I take a day or two off from posting if I ever get tired of posting on forums. It's rare that I ever get tired of posting however. I enjoy posting on forums more than any other platform. It's best to take a break if you feel like you're getting overwhelmed. Especially if you're doing a exchange or work for a package team on a forum. You want your posts to be high quality posts, and if you're not in the right headspace you can't post high quality posts.

I enjoy using Font Awesome, but I haven't paid for their premium services. I think their free icons are fine, but I wasn't aware of the page view limitations until now. I don't think forum owners have to worry too much about this, unless it's a specific niche that has thousands of members visiting the site daily.

Out of all the different hosts I've used throughout the years, Ionos has been my favorite so far. I never had any downtime using their service, and I've been with them for almost two years now. The only thing I don't like about their service is the fact that you have to purchase SSL certificates from them, you can't use ones you got from other companies.

Thankfully this has never happened to me before. I only go with trusted hosting services, ones that have been around for a long time. I'd be weary of purchasing hosting from a brand new company, unless I knew that the owner was trustworthy.

About a month or so ago I got the idea to start taking pictures of the games, movies, action figures, etc that I own. Sure I could have just uploaded these pictures onto my Facebook account, but I wanted to make it more personal so I went ahead and installed a gallery onto my hosting account. It's only for my spouse and I, so I didn't get a domain name for it and I'm just using a subdomain. I think it's a good idea to have something like this in place, just in case something happens to you or if you want to keep track of the things you own already so you don't end up with the same things. I know there's apps that can keep track of games that you own, but this is much more fun!

Do you have any hidden forums on your community other than staff forums? If so are these hidden forums locked behind post counts or do member have to request to view these hidden areas? I currently do have a hidden forum on my latest community, it's specifically for sites that contain adult material such as gambling. I understand not everyone wants to see these types of websites, so I made it to where only a certain member group can view this section.

Has anyone here ever tried out the Vanilla forum software? It was the first modern forum platform I remember seeing back in the early 10's, but I never actually joined a forum that used this software before. I've never tried it out either, since I wasn't really a fan of the layout. I've only ever seen people use Flarum as well as Discourse when it comes to modern forum software. Would you ever give this software a test?

Open Source Community Forum Software

Community-based support for open source Vanilla forum owners, developers, and theme creators.

open.vanillaforums.com

Does anyone here know Javascript pretty well? I've always wanted to learn so I could eventually make plugins or websites from scratch while incorporating some php. I haven't really got around to teaching myself any Javascript yet though. If you do know, how did you learn? What resources did you use along your journey of learning the language?

I mentioned that I would love to see Simple Machines and Woltlab added to the community hive at some point, this was over at AJ. Two staff members from Invision replied and mentioned that if the developers for Woltlab are interested in the project, chances are it will be part of the Community Hive at a later date. Invision used to be my favorite paid software, but for now my favorite is Woltlab. It is nice that they lowered the price of their software now, but it's still expensive.

Has anyone here use Hostinger before? I recently decided to try them out, since they had a deal going on for the first year of hosting. I went with their shared hosting plan, which came with a free domain name as well as a free email account too. I only paid $45 for one year, which isn't too bad of a deal! I haven't had any issues with them so far, but I have heard that someone on Forum promotion once had an issue with them. Hopefully I won't run into any issues with them in the future, I might actually end up switching my other websites to Hostinger if things go smoothly for my current forum.

The worse one I've ever used was Dreamhost. I kept waiting for days for my DNS settings to actually update and work properly, I even reached out to customer service and never got a response back. So I just ended up canceling my service and went with a different host. I never had this issue with any other hosting provider, and I know sometimes DNS services can take up to 48 hours to update but this was long past 48 hours.

This is a tough call, I'm currently active on a few different webmaster forums as well as general discussion forums. There are a couple in each niche that are doing well, and some that could be doing better. I think you should go with the niche you find more fascinating, and one that you feel more comfortable diving into.

I was using vB for a little bit not too long ago, but decided to make the switch and merge my existing community with two other ones and now I'm using Woltlab Suite. Back in the day, vB was used on many gaming forums I'd visit, it was either IPB or vBulletin that gaming communities used. Now all the forums that once used vB are using Xenforo, heck even some of the IPB communities are powered by Xenforo now. Doesn't surprise me seeing how some of the devs that worked on vB now work on Xenforo. I'm happy with the move to Woltlab, it's a much better platform.

I have messed around with DALL-E before, it's interesting to see what results you get. I didn't touch any of the settings to improve the result, however I have seen others use DALL-E to design some pretty accurate pictures. I don't think I'd use it for my websites, I just use it for fun from time to time.

I haven't used Audacity in a while, but it's been my go to choice for sound editing. It's interface is a little outdated, though it gets the job done regardless.

Have you ever merged your site with another site before? Or perhaps you've merged a few communities into one? Last month I decided to merge my three main communities together to create one huge community. The niches of each forum were similar enough to merge into one, and I feel that it's helped me manage my websites better and I continue to get steady activity. Plus, if I ever get the idea for a new community I can just integrate my new idea into my forum and then there will be no need for me to create any other community.

Have you ever purchased Offshore hosting before? Some people feel that offshore hosting fits their websites needs, and they feel that certain topics may not be allowed on hosting companies located in their countries. Some countries may have stronger censorship and these people rely on offshore hosts for their sites. If you have used offshore hosting before, what made you decide to go with offshore hosting? Which hosting company did you go with and did it fit your needs?

Have you ever thought about looking into blackhat SEO for your community? I don't think it's worth it IMO, lots of search engines these days are designed to detect blackhat techniques and it can really ruin your site's SEO. Anything blackhat related will come back to harm you in some way, so I highly recommend that you don't participate in blackhat SEO even if it gives you the results you want.

I still think forums are fun. Though honestly these days it feels like more and more people are wanting to just get their quick fix of seeing what their friends and family are talking about. It's easy to start mindlessly scrolling through your feed over browsing a website. Even if these sites put limitations to what people can post. For example one of my best friends almost lost his Facebook account for sharing posts that weren't harmful yet Facebook flagged them. I mentioned he was freely able to join my community and post whatever he wanted, but he didn't really seem to interested...

It's great seeing another free open source software! I'm not a fan of the modern forum design, so I'm not really a fan of the look and layout of FOREM powered communities. Reminds me too much of social media, which I'm also not really a fan of design and layout wise. I can see this being good for those who enjoy that type of layout though!