# Testing a web site



## t2000kw (Jul 29, 2006)

There was some interest in having our own web site a while back, and it seems that we had some issues with the wiki site. One issue I and some others had was not getting notification emails sent to us about replies to threads we subscribed to.

If any of you have visited the CAFE web site, their system works pretty well. It uses software called phpBB. I'm not sure of all of the settings they use on their board, but I was able to get a test site set up on a free server to see if this sort of setup might be worth our while to use, or if we would be better off just using this site (which makes it simpler for me). 

I didn't knock myself out on this one, so if there is not enough interest, using this site or taking another direction is fine with me. It appears that email notifications are working on this test board. Right now users can sign up without the need for me to approve them. I can change that. 

I don't think the hosting site I set up the test board on would be the best place for this but it was available, free, and had a somewhat automated setup to get phpBB and the required database, MySQL, installed and ready to set up. (They do have a non-free version that might be worthwhile, has more storage available, etc.) 

Anyway, here it is, if you are interested in trying it out. Remember, all of this information will possibly be trashed at some point, so use this just to try this board out. If you post or reply to a thread, make sure you check the box below your text box that you wan to be notified of replies. 

There are a number of features on this board that I haven't tested or tried out. I set it up to be as simple as possible to start out with. 

If we would end up hosting this somewhere else, where there might not be an automated installation process for the software, I would either need some help to install the software or have to spend some time learning how to do it manually.

Let me know what you think about the site, and also if we would be better off here. APC works, does a good job of email notifications for replies to threads we subscribe to, etc. I do remember that there were some concerns about our local group being on a web site that is multinational in scope, but I don't know if that is a real problem or not. 

Here is the link. If you get a message that there "are too many connections" remember that this is a free site and it may have bandwidth problems. The host also seems to occasionally take a site down to check for objectionable material for a period of up to 4 hours, sometimes even longer. But that might be a one-time thing after the initial site setup. It only happened once on this test board. 


Donald


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## MatPat (Mar 22, 2004)

Nice work Don! We do need something a little better than the forum on the Wiki site. That might serve our needs pretty well if we only had notifications. I say we look into moving forward with this. I may give try getting the phpBB software loaded and see if I can manage to screw it up somehow


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## t2000kw (Jul 29, 2006)

It's worth the learning experience, I think. Give it a go and see how far you get.

What I like about it is that the topic reply and PM notification actually work!

The site will look similar to the CAFE web site, which some of us have been to. It's the same software package, bu tit might be a newer version. The software is free, no license fees to pay for like some of the other bulletin board software out there (though there are plenty of other free ones, too).

I'm willing to help out if you'd like.

It will come down to whether the majority of the members would like our own site or not. APC is nice, but an international board has some disadvantages.

For those of us who haven't tried this new test site out, this is nothing like a Wiki site. It's more intuitive. I've been involved with another club for growing hops for beermaking and we ried a Wiki site. Members quickly lost interest just like they did here. Ours was set up to look nice but the software had some limitations that caused problems. This software has more features that can be enabled than I think we'd ever need.

http://swoape.site88.net/swoape_bbs/

Don


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