Advice for Community Forum; Sim. Users - 20 - 50.

[Hanso]

I want to start a Community forum, one that can hold up to 20 - 50 users simultaniously! I'm going to base the forum on Uk football.

So I ask in faith what kind of package would be suited to accomodate such a forum. I'm quite new to the entire face of it all, but I aim to start a PHP forum and build from there.

If would also appreciate some advice on running and maintaining a forum, if any advice is available?

I also need some serious help on the software side of things, as well as the diskspace and how much bandwidth is advisable.

Thanks for your time on this matter.

[Scott]

Well lets see how we get on here, server side first. 20-50 isn't very demanding on the grand scale of things so I wouldn't be looking at any big hosting plans - start small but pick a company that will allow you to expand if need be. Your ISP might give you some space, depending on who they are. Finding hosting is a challenge in itself, let us know if you need an extra hand with that.

In my opinion, PHP is certainly the way to go. There are a lot of different options within the PHP language which depend, as well as other things, on your budget and what features you'll need. Best way to find these is to look at the bottom of forums you visit, most of them will have the name and a link to the software that runs it. For example, FU is powered by vBulletin (http://www.vbulletin.com) which is a commercial package written in PHP.

I don't really want to push you done any one sided track, since there are a lot of different forum packages out there and the decision is up to you in the end. Hopefully I've given you a bit to go on, but don't hesitate to ask if you need a little bit more help.

Finally, in the interests of plugging ones posts, I created a start up guide (http://www.forumuniversity.com/campus/showthread.php?t=146) which you might like to read. :)

[Hanso]

I got this place reccomended to me by a friend who is with the same place. He reckons the package would suit my needs to the ground.

http://www.ukhost4u.com/advanced.html

Has anyone else been with this company? Does the package look as good as I think it does?

All feedback welcome.

Ps. I tried to thank you Scott, but I somehow managed to thank myself. lol.

[Scott]

Although I've not been with them, I found this (http://webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=421360&highlight=ukhost4u) over at WHT, and similar threads beside which doesn't look too great.

For UK hosting, I would have to recommend Clook (http://www.clook.co.uk/) which after a year have been excellent. Another one (located in Dundee) which I don't have experience with but have heard good things about is Rochen (http://www.rochenhost.co.uk/). Just a few suggestions, but it's better to look around now than face problems later :)