So, you see all these sites on the web and think to yourself, "I wanna be like them and have my OWN online community!" Well, I wrote this guide for beginners, to teach you the basic things you'll probably need to know.

1. Before you do anything, determine your level of dedication. Will you have the patience to nurture your forums/community and grow it? If the answer is no, you really shouldn't be creating one, should you?

2. Learn how to use basic things like HTML and CSS. Tizag.com has some great tutorials, to help you along. This will probably help you in the longrun.

3. Determine the purpose of your community. Is it Apple Fanboy Heaven? Or maybe Gamer Central? Figure out what you want your community to be about. Should be something you're interested in.

4. Get a host. And a domain. NiftyHost.us is great for online communities! Just be sure you know how to use our services (remember, we're here if you need help!) You'll need a domain. .Info domains are cheap and great for starting websites, and even mid size or large sites. Getting a domain will help you with SEO (Google will
notice you, yes) and your members will be more interested. Chances are members will remember something like niftyhost.us rather than niftyhost.hellohost.com, you know?

5. Get a name for your community. Make your name unique, but something your users will remember, please! Simple but good. Like:

hacker-pro.com - Excellent
hackingcommunity.info - Perfect
hackersforthewin.com - No.

6. Choose your forum SOFTWARE. I'll reccomend a few. Please, use demos ad guides and read them thoroughly before even downloading them! Here's a few homepages of great forum softwares:

MyBB- feature packed, user friendly interface, thousands of themes and plugins available! Powerful yet simple. Also free to use.
http://mybboard.net

SMF- nice features, pretty good interface, really good for beginners. Also has a great iPhone theme, available as a plugin. Also free.
http://simplemachines.org

Those are my favorites. In case you're wondering, NiftyHost's community is running MyBB right now.

7. Set up your board. Congrats on downloading and installing your forum software. Now, you have to set it up. This includes categories, banners, themes, plugins, ranks, you name it. Make your community unique. I would personally reccomend having a staff room as a category, visible only to staff (Global Mods, Mods, other staff, etc). It's a good idea.

8. Once you're absolutely ready and you've made your community, spread the word. Showcase it on NiftyHost. Place your link in your signature on other forums. There are also sites set up specifically to promote your community. My favorite: http://promotion-source.com. Check em out. Submit your site to Google, do everything possible to keep your forum going.

9. Continue working hard. Just because your forums are set up, doesn't mean you just sit back and relax. Hire staff. Manage your members. Tend to other's suggestions.

10. Have fun! Everyone loves an administrator with a kind heart and a sense of humor!

I hope this guide helps you. Have fun with your new forums!

Nice post :) But the name is a little bit a bad choice, because this is only about forums and not about a community in general.

True. Thanks for the suggestion :)

its better to use seditio its very easy to install plus the skins look very good.

Seditio is a website engine (CMS). What I'm talking about here is forums, such as MyBB, phpBB, YaBB, vBulletin, iPB, Phorum, etc.

Nicely written Matt! Great job! I usually use MyBB, SMF or phpBB for my forums (phpBB only because it's easy to integrate with my login/register scripts.

if you are building english forums
I would recommend phpbb or mybb

however if you are building chinese forums
I would recommend discuz or phpwind

(07-10-2010, 02:21 PM)Cameron Wrote: Nicely written Matt! Great job! I usually use MyBB, SMF or phpBB for my forums (phpBB only because it's easy to integrate with my login/register scripts.

Thanks Cameron, trying to be helpful ;)

Good, but fix the SMF link... lol

Ah thanks, HiddenKnowledge fixed it I believe.