Personal or Business

Over the last few years I've kinda lost the zeal to be mod/admin to forms and kinda went to the personal side where I just use the forum software more for keeping in touch with friends and family. Especially the ones that don't like facebook and other social media sites.

I'm wondering if anyone else has explored it and what results you have had.

 

Since I've moved half way across the county. Not a lot of my friends I want to stay in touch with use Facebook with no desire to start. They got more involved when I mentioned doing a community forum, since 'tech support' isn't a block away anymore.

 

I tend to do both. As with Bob though I tend to post more elsewhere than I do on my own site. I think its probably with doing so much work to get the site up to what it is today that does it for me. You tend to have posted that much you get board and wanna go speak to other people. Besides you can be more yourself elsewhere, whereas your own site you are more bothered about the sites image.

 

The problem some face is that a lot more people are using the internet through their cell phones. FB, Twit, etc. all have superior apps to make it easy to use their services. People often complain about using a forum on their cell phones.

I've used forums a lot over the years for keeping in touch with some family members. But now they are so wrapped up in FB and using their cell phones for all updates.

I don't use FB. Family members who enjoy their cell phones a lot will often just send a text message to those not on FB.

We actually quit putting our regular business updates on all the major SN's not long ago. All of our content is in our hands now on our own website and on local websites. We have always reached more customers through SE's than SN's. However, SN's are good for finding people in need of a job.

 

I still enjoy forum software, but for me these days the activity needed to run one proper online isn't there anymore. I sure ain't sitting watching a forum I'm running for a large part of the day, wasting my time away doing it. And for what? 1, 2 or 3 posts made if your lucky, utterly pointless.

 

We used our forum for a non profit organisation (a car club).

It's the perfect way for our community to discuss modification, mechanical problems, sell and look for parts. Plan meeting events and so on

We have also installed a shoutbox. Many admin fear this will kill the forum posting... in our case it didnt !! Discussion on the shoutbox are more of a "on the fly" type, as opposed to regular forum posts.

Also some use it to get more attention to their post

 

No Gary, as everyone keeps telling you, it's YOUR forums that are always dead, not everyone else's.

That's because you only keep them open a couple of weeks then shut them in a huff.

 

Yes Mark, I've closed forums due to them not being used after 12 months or more sitting there online. Just like many other people who close theirs each week, you then see selling their on forum licences on. You act like it's just me who's closed a forum? Also, that why I now run a FREE forum, because it's costing me nothing and will always be there because it's free!

What do I have to lose keeping a FREE forum going Mark, absolutely nothing at all, doesn't matter if it get used or not to me anymore. :nana:

You pay to rent a server host each month, and quiet an expensive one at that. The one you use is not exactly cheap run by Tim. And for what, averaging 2 users online per day, classic! :lmao:

 

"Averaging 2 users online each day", what gives you that idea?

Anyway, most of your forums haven't been up for 12 months, they struggle to manage 12 days.

Let's see how long this current one lasts, because the past few you have also said "I will never close this one, it's here to stay", and then you do.

I really should screenshot some of your posts, but I can never be arsed frankly.

 

Well, This is taken from your own BC Forums posted by a member there.

Wrong, again!

Really, really, really "love the fact you said" that, yes let's see Mark. You keep paying £25-30 month to average 2 users online each day. While I run mine for FREE.

You might have a point if I was starting out running a forum going FREE, but I've gone from paying to run forums for many years to running a FREE one, the complete opposite for the first time. And let me tell you, I'm extremely happy with how I'm now running a free forum, you carry on wasting your money and it's makes me smile seeing yours and me knowing I'm doing - the right thing!

 

If you want to believe ridiculous comments by forum trolls on my site feel free.

You don't know the history of the site and you take everything at face value.

Almost all the accounts you see on the site are real, certainly only one of them is me, and that is my own account. You must remember that a successful site like mine breeds jealousy, and some people have a vested interest in trying to play the site's success down by claiming the members are all faked.

You yourself have indulged in this very tactic about other sites. At one point you even claimed I was really Kier Darby!

 

So now you're calling your own members trolls, nice one!

Well of course we believe you. Mr. Sock Puppet.

 

And can I say here Mark, you're making a fool of yourself arguing over "me running a FREE forum", a free bloody forum of all things, you for real. LMAO!

As usual, it's always you who brings my forum up for no reason. I never bring yours up except in cases like this just to defend myself against your ongoing yearly mission to slander mine. The same old story and everyone knows and sees it now (3rd time you've done here this week for no reason) since I set-up that free board last week - Hello, wonder why that is?

You have issues going about me running a forum, please go sort them out because you're doing your own "paid for forum" much more harm than you'll ever do a free one. If you want to carry on bashing my forum, hey "Feel Free" to carry on doing it here. Because I'll get a lot more enjoyment and laughs out of bashing one you're paying to run each month in replies made each time. :cow:

In other words cut your losses and stop what you're doing. Because you cannot win! Not when you're paying to run a forum and mine is free. Wake up and smell the roses!!!

 

LOL please don't be under any illusion that you can "damage" my site by telling lies about it on here.

Also, slander needs to be false.

 

I don't tell lies about your BC Forums Mr Scrotnig.

Now I'm going back to adding some more new "Free White Smiley" downloads on mine again, as I planned to get one (if I can). Which you keep stopping me from getting done by the way! :angry:

 

Actually, there's something I've been meaning to ask you Mark.

I've noticed you never help anyone out over the years I've known you. You know, you never post any help Code, CSS, Graphics (nothing at all) telling people how they can do things stuck wanting help, not like I've done many times on XenForo and vBulletin were I can possibly help out. Or creating free smilies for people to use, creating logo's free for people use. With you it's always ME, ME, ME all the time. You use loads of free mods on your forum people have created freely, but you never ever give anything back yourself. Recently you made some changes to your "Active Stream" page and read "another person asking that you create a guide" on vB.org showing how you did it to help them do same. I knew then reading it, you would not do it and you never have since.

How comes you never help people or give anything back to communities like vB.com and vB.org that have given you so much over the years for free. You really are a person who's all "Me, Me, Me", who refuses to help others out only thinking of yourself and your own forum all the time!

You're not stupid, you only have to look at the massive changes you've made on BC Forums to know you ARE pretty handy and knowledgeable at working with vBulletin software. So why do you never help some people out like newbies at times with things you know how to do. And the same can be seen with your BC Forums, you have no resource section offering anything away for free, you don't even offer a section offering people to sell things or anything like that. You project a very strong image that you hate helping others in any way at all.

Care to answer that one?

 

Yes.

What people often want me to do is provide them with step by step instructions on how to transform parts of their site into mine.

There are a couple of issues here:

1) I don't spend countless hours making my site unique only to then give the exact code to someone else so they can quickly and easily make their site look like mine. Been there, done that, and even then got the accusation that *I* was copying *them*!!!

2) That said, I have helped many people, often I take it to PM because it disrupts threads.

3) My site is heavily customised. It's not just a matter of "find this, replace with this", because I use a lot of customised and altered CSS and templates and plugins. Much of my code won't work on someone else's site unless they make the same core changes I have made, which will then bugger up other things in their design.

So I would usually need to go to my stock vBulletin test site, and attempt to create the same thing out of stock templates first, then write up the instructions. Something which I simply don't have time to do.

Try asking Paul M why he doesn't release the vBulletin.org "Like" addon. The answer is exactly the same.

On top of all that, I'm NOT a professional coder and whilst if I break my own site, that's fine I will fix it, if I break someone else's, well I don't want that responsibility frankly.

 

I am paying to run a forum WHICH HAS LOTS OF MEMBERS. You are running a free one WHICH HAS NO MEMBERS AT ALL.

Nothing wrong in that, but let's just be clear on the difference here.

Mine started out as a free one, it outgrew that in 2002.

 

Well that's say it all really "right there", your whole attitude towards helping other people out. Like I said before, it's all "Me, Me, Me" with you. And what about all the features you copied from XenForo styling, I would hardly say it's unique created from your own imagination. More like ripped from XenForo and stuck on your own forum with super glue.

By the way, they wasn't asking for your whole site styling code. Just how you made some of your changes to the "Active Stream" page. So how was they going to clone all your site from that little bit of help they wanted?

That's funny, you previously told me it started life using "XMB" forum software hosted yourself at the start. Hmm, so which is it? You change your story to suit you faster than the wind changes direction.