Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

Question

Creating an Online Community

Jul 30, 2016 2:42PM PDT

I am new to the world of website design and would greatly appreciate any advice or guidance that you may have on the forum. I would like to create an online community forum to bring together individuals with a particular hobby or interest. I am not sure if there are template site builder resources available that make creating something like this easier. The site I would like to host would allow people to register and create their own online profiles. They would be able to specify their own particular field of interest. For example, if this was a car site, then an individual could select that they had an interest in Aston Martins and Rolls Royces. They would then also be able to search for other people in their local area or within in a particular mileage radius from their location who shared a similar interest. Basically, it would work in a similar way to some online dating sites but would be for connecting people with a particular interest. I would also like to provide the ability for individuals to send each other private messages on the site and also post forum topics too.

I would be grateful if anyone would be able to point me in the right direction to get started with a project like this. I am hopeful that website builders may exist that can automate some of the setup of the site from a template. Any advice would be very welcome.

Many thanks,

Daniel

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Answer
Spam links will be deleted.
Jul 30, 2016 2:56PM PDT

Dafydd.

- Collapse -
Answer
This is easy.
Jul 30, 2016 3:04PM PDT

Pick over https://www.google.com/search?q=phpbb+alternatives

But what I find is that some folk flame out over the installation and maintenance of such systems. They sometimes think it should be some "template."

Those are the ones that usually flame or flame out.

- Collapse -
Answer
if you are new to webdesign
Jul 30, 2016 6:17PM PDT

then I would suggest subscribing to a hosting service, install wordpress and get the bulletin board mod for it. You can find all kinds of templates to give it the look you want.

You can also subscribe to a hosting service and install bulletin board that is usually included in the package. You can find templates to most of the major free bulletin boards. see the following for a list of 15 open source forum scripts that you can download and install at your hosting service if they do not have any available. Installing is not that hard if you can follow instructions and have common sense.

http://codenread.com/best-of-15-open-source-php-forum-scripts-bulletin-board/

- Collapse -
Answer
Take a look at Drupal
Aug 5, 2016 7:42AM PDT

And more specifically, Open Atrium, which is built using a Drupal.

~Sovereign