Digital BW, The Print

Hello,

Here's a thought - - 

I own a large Website which offers resources for Web builders known 
as "reallybig.com." It is really a network of sites which has been 
online continuously since 1997. As part of that project, several 
months ago I purchased forum software and the necessary license to 
run VBULLETIN on my servers. Vbulletin is probably the most widely-
utilized and most stable commercial forum product in use today. Here 
are some examples of vbulletin board currently in use:

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/index.php?
http://cayenne.rennlist.com/cayenne/forum.htm
http://www.dcresource.com/forums/

Although the forum is set up and ready to go, we have turned off a 
server module to make it thus far "temporarily unavailable" for 
postings, as we are about to make some significant and positive 
changes at reallybig.com. Most importantly, we will be breaking the 
forum away from the rest of the site and placing it on a brand new 
server, where it will be made ready to roll. There is no reason on 
earth why I would not be able to easily host this DBWTP forum as a 
specific area of interest, along with other existing topics and 
categories.  

It would be available to the public, and would require registration. 
It could be moderated or not, and I am completely open to giving 
full access to the software administration panels to one or several 
other members, in order to facilitate the normal management duties 
that might be required. This takes some of the burden from me, and 
also ensures that the forum would never be held aside, in the event 
of some catastrophe, such as my sudden demise (let me just knock on 
wood here for a moment...).

The forum area (like all areas of my network) will see the same 
advertising as the rest of the forum areas, but ads will never 
appear as interstitials (those horrible ads that appear instead of 
the page you were expecting), and will appear only at the page 
borders (such as the top, bottom, etc.).

My servers are backed up every evening, redundantly to two unrelated 
and completely separate servers. I have NEVER lost data on my 
Websites.

Also, you should be aware that I am NOT a forum guru, so I will 
occasionally require the assistance of folks more knowledgeable than 
myself, when it comes to setting things up in a more "whiz bang" way.

Anyone have any thoughts or feelings about this? Care to open a 
dialog about pursuing this route?

Sincerely,

Jeff


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Stephen 
Veillette" <stephen@v...> wrote:
> 
> Google does have a groups feature (http://groups-
beta.google.com/), but it is in beta and 
> very feature-limited.
> 
> Regarding your concerns, Walker, I think any serious discussion of 
moving this group 
> would need to involve a polling of current membership to see which 
way to proceed-- stay 
> or leave.  Any ideas that I've been floating are just an attempt 
to brainstorm solutions to 
> the problems and concerns that others have with this forum (which 
I also share).
> 
> -Steve
> 
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Walker 
Blackwell <lists@g...> 
> wrote:
> > This forum works pretty well for me . . . . mainly just because 
the 
> > Mail software in OS X highlights all past emails relating to the 
one 
> > you're reading . . . But I agree; it would be nice to have a 
more 
> > functional forum/organization. There are many different Yahoo 
forums 
> > relating to what we talk about in this forum (Piezography3000, 
> > EpsonWideFormat, etc.) and I feel that if we took this forum out 
of the 
> > Yahoo realm, people would just drift to those forums unless the 
new 
> > forum was somehow hot-linked to this one or well announced and 
had good 
> > email support. This is a very energetic group of new users and 
> > professionals. That is what its strength is; we need to foster 
that. 
> > I'm sure google will come out with good forum support with 
unlimited 
> > track-backs and module support in a year or so. I'm hearing 
they're 
> > also thinking about creating a web-based OS. We'll see . . .
> > 
> > As the technology grows and we become ever more involved with 
digital 
> > technique, this group may become a full-fledged organization. 
Till 
> > then, lets just keep working here until a really good 
alternative comes 
> > along that's free. :-)
> > 
> > take care all, Walker