Technical Details Of Forum Hosting

An online forum is an online conversation website, invented as the modern counterpart of a traditional pin board (a place where people can leave a public message). Forums are web applications which manage user created content (UCC). Web forums create a sense of a virtual community which often builds up around forums having active users. Sports, fashion, politics, religions, video games, technology and music are popular subjects. Using images with super imposed text and internet short hand is famous across the web forums and is commonly used. Online forums are common in many developed countries. In terms of number of posts, Japan is in the lead with its largest forum “2channel” followed by China with its forum “Tianya Club”.

Many software packages are available on the internet which is used to create and host a forum. These softwares are written in a range of scripts such as PHP, Perl, JAVA, Cold Fusion, DELPHI and ASP. The most common Forum hosting Script is PHP followed by ASP and Perl. PHP forum hosting is done though a number of softwares such as Beehive forum, bb press and Fruit show are few examples of softwares which can be used for online forum hosting. These forums support PHPBB (PHP Bulletin Board) format as well and is compatible with PHPBB forum hosting. Every package propose different features, from the most basic like providing with text only postings to more advanced features such as offering multimedia support and a Bulletin Board code (known as BBCode).

In most parts of the world, web forums need a registration to post a message. Users which have registered themselves to a particular website are referred to as “members”, and are allowed to post electronic messages. The procedure of registration engage with one’s age verification, typically over 12 years is required followed by an agreement to the terms and conditions of the service. In China and Japan anonymity is encouraged. On these forums a tripcode (means of confirmation and age verification which requires no registration) is used to identify an individual without any need of an official registration.

Forums are directed by a set of individuals which are “administrators” and “moderators”, who are responsible for technical management, formation of a topic and creating and imposing forum policies. Most forums have a list of regulations featuring aims, desires and guidelines of the creator of the forum. When rules are broken by a user, user is usually exiled from that forum and the administrator denies his\her access to the website. Aberrant content is usually deleted and if the topic is considered as the source of the problem than the whole topic may be deleted or “locked”. In a locked thread, users can’t post any further. A “Troll” is a user who willingly and constantly violates “network etiquettes”. They frequently post offending messages about susceptible topics in a recognized web community to attract users into a reaction. They may also upload images and link offending and distasteful (shock sites) websites that others may find disgusting. Reacting to a troll’s act is usually not encouraged. Sock puppets, spammers and double posters are usually discouraged as well on most forums. Some forums use a “word censoring” system that picks up words which can be offending or abusive. The most common choice is an asterisk (*) to replace letters of an abusive or offending word.

A forum is made up of a branching directory structure enclosing at “threads” and inside them “posts”. A post is a user presented message together with a box having a user’s information and the date and time it was presented. A thread or a topic is a compilation of posts usually displayed from oldest to the latest. A thread is defined by a title, additional description and an opening post. Sensibly, forums are arranged into a number of set of standard topics updated and motivated by a group of people known as “members” and administered by moderators and administrators.

Free forum hosting is offered by many companies which lets its users to create and run a forum without any charges. Hosting a forum which is free is provided by Forumotion, Forumer, Lefora and many other companies. These companies usually place an advertisement on its user’s forum to overcome with the cost of servers and other facilities.

Some companies provide with forum hosting services at a cheaper costs. Cheap forum hosting is best for low budget clients who wish to host a forum of their own and to generate income through advertising and sponsorship but the client has to compromise on bandwidth or data storage capacity. Cheap forum hosting is provided by Lotuses and cheap-hosting.ws.

Best forum hosting is provided by SiteGround and Inmotion which are ranked as best forum hosting sites. Apart from the typical features, they offer a number of additional services for forums such as free PHPbb forum installation, installation of forum add-ons, forum upgrades, forum tutorials and expert technical assistance. SiteGround is considered as the best forum hosting site due to its cheaper pricing and a full featured forum hosting plan.

Hosting a forum is not an easy job. A lot of technical as well as ethical aspects have to be considered before creating and running a forum. But still forums are one of the most favorite places of internet surfers and a good option for generating income through advertising because of its huge user list.