Ok I am a sci-fi fanatic and I want to start a forum site about it. I need several things:

1. some co-owners to help get it started
2. a site theme
3. a good domain idea

Is there anyone out there that would like to help me? My philosophy is its not my site its the members' site. I run the site for them and I listen to all ideas. I want as many co-owners I can get to help me!

I don't really want to be a co-cowner, but i can help you along the way, give you ideas and help when you need it.

Right. You can start the forum on your own and then when you get members, you can then make them modorators of forums to manage sections of your forums. (like a co-owner).

Thats the best way to do it. Also, another good idea would be to get 1 of your friends to be an administrator aswell as you and you could both manage the forums.

Can i just ask some questions, then i can direct you to some good places to buy domain names etc...

1) Do you want a free forums like... yourforum.forumup.org ?

2) Or do you want your own domain like .com or .co.uk ?

3) Do you want to pay for the forums software or do you want to download a free forums like phpbb and stick it on your server as a forums ?

I've administered a few bulletin boards for gaming sites, and it can be a lot of work - you need to have a clear idea of what you want the site/board to accomplish, and communicate that clearly to your audience (potential forum members!) - including being specific regarding what kind of content is/isn't appropriate. Hosting a forum/website for a topic that you are passionate about can also be a lot of fun, as well as a huge learning experience.

That being said, I offer my help in any way you may need it - being the huge sci-fi fan that I am!

Allsortshop's questions are an excellent place to start - as you think about your answers, consider that most "free" web hosters are not likely to give you the kind of space and/or features that you need to run a bulletin board - you may need to do some searching if this is the route that you want to go. If you decide to pay for hosting, note that it is customary and entirely legitimate to solicit (not necessarily demand!) a small donation from members to cover your costs - prospective members should have the option to decline.

As Allsortshop has indicated, phpBB is a totally free, open source bulletin board that comes with a TON of features - check them out here. Your host needs to give you php and MySQL as part of your hosting package.

And now, a question of my own!
What aspects of science fiction do you intend to deal with? Are we talking movies, television shows, fiction, comics - any or all??? As you are no doubt aware, "sci-fi" is an incredibly huge topic, and each "sub-genre" can have (and has had!) entire web sites devoted to just that one small piece of the pie. Nailing down where you want to start will give those of us that indicate a desire to help an idea of where to go from here. (I don't mean for my question to start a discussion that gets us in danger of getting off topic in this forum. Should this become the case, those interested can rely on e-mail or private messaging to continue. At this point, I simply want to get you thinking about the direction you want to go in!! - no doubt you've done a lot of thinking already - )

This post has been edited by The Architect: Apr 17 2006, 08:23 AM

All good questions my friends,

I dont have my own server so I would most likely use iForumer. I allows unlimited space so its great for that. Also, I want my own domain name ___.com but for now i have a subdomain.

I dont know yet what aspects of sci-fi to cover. It is an rpg site but it needs a theme. So thats what co-owners are for. I have 2 right now but I wouldnt mind some more. I would have my friends but we live in a small community and word would travel far. Getting members is my main concern.


I would like to invite everyone to post their thoughts on this topic. A lot of those questions are being pondered as we speak. Sci-fi is a vast topic, that is the reason i am requesting help on many sites because i have to narrow it down. Thank you for your ideas and I await more!!!

Right,

Now that you have decided on the forums, you need to take these steps...

1) Choose where you want to buy your domain name from. My suggestion is starlinkuk.co.uk or dynadot.com.

2) You need to choose what your domain name is going to be.

3) Then you need to decide on the categorys on your forum. This is the hardest bit. What i did is map out the key sections, then put the categorys into the sections like...

Games:
>Funny Games
>New Games
>Action Games

etc...

4) Then once your forums is set up you need to advertise it. Put meta tags in your pages. Submitt it to search engines. On geekstogo, put your signiture as your web address. Stuff like that etc...

Well I dont really know what the name should be yet...

Brainstorm it on a piece of papar.

yes but i want my co-owners to have a say in it