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

General discussion

How to set up a forum for my website

Oct 22, 2007 12:07AM PDT

Hi
I want to set up a forum where customers can post their own photos probably with a link from our website. I'd also like them to be able to chat and set up posts but I have no idea how to go about it.
What advice can you give? What's my starting point?
Thanks
Anne

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Website
Oct 24, 2007 9:18AM PDT

OK, my first question would be when you say setup a forum... is this saying that you already have a matching website w/ host and domain, or are you looking to obtain all of this for a forum based website?

~Sovereign

- Collapse -
I read your post again...
Oct 24, 2007 9:24AM PDT

and it sounds like you do have a website. So your starting point, if you want to go the easy route, is to find a forum (a google search can take care of that) that has a "chat" plugin. The posting part (photos and text) is usually already integrated, so pretty much all forums will have this capability. Now, I don't know who you are hosted with, but you want to double check, once you picked a forum, that this forum will work on the hosts server and that you (or they) are able to install it.

~Sovereign

- Collapse -
Cpanel
Oct 25, 2007 8:15AM PDT

Check your hosts control panel and see if they offer any forums already like SMF (simple machine forum).