Why This Forum Platform?

[Erroneous 0]

[6] Atenea: Does anybody know if we run on SMF?

[6] Zeke: Not sure what that is

[6] Ren: What's SMF?

SMF is simple machine's forum, we run PHPBB. I use to code for them.

[6] Shark: It actually up to erron since he hosts the site

I choose phpBB because it's free just like SMF, however SMF is newer compared to phpBB and it lacks bravado; plus I know phpBB and can do whatever the heck I want to the code to do whatever I want it to do, like the dice system

I do own and operate site's that use licensed forum software, the kind you pay big dollars to just get a legal copy for. Like Invision Powered Board and vBulletin. Not many site owners will jump at the paid forum software because:

#1 price

Why pay for a software that nobody uses. Kinda like how I created a RWBY RP site and it's gone nowhere, if I spent $150 on a forum software for that, would have been a waste.

[10] Shark: it hasn't gotten anywhere yet...\

#2 domain names are not transferable with licenses

If SAO-RPG.com moved to swordartroleplay.com, we wouldn't legally be able to transfer the forum software, we'd have to buy another license.

[10] Shark: Well i dont see a need to transfer anyways.

It happens sometimes with sites as they get older. For example you might want to shorten a name, or if the site/company name changes you want the address to change with it.

[10] Shark: well remember back just before I joined SAO-RPG, it was pretty dead. Then after I joined then BAM! hahaha

Yeah I need to put more attention to it but that's another subject

[10] Shark: yea... anywho

I ran into the site name change issue on my dothack site, one of the older names was .hack//integral, now it's Integrability. Google, other search engines, social registrations, web services, etc... do not do well with punctuation marks like . and / so I renamed it to a simple word. But the site address still has the old name, soo....

[10] Shark: haha thats something.

And since the word "hack" is in the site address, some web blockers block the site outright. The other reason why I changed the name.

[10] Shark: wow. I can understand though

And the #3rd reason why most people do not buy licensed forum software is.... is it worth the extra dollars? Most require the initial price usually of $100-$300 per license, per site, per domain.

[10] Shark: ouch!

And many people like myself love the features it offers (blogs, galleries, WYSIWYG editors, downloads page, portal)

[10] Shark: good point

Many of the free forums, you have to either manual code the stuff in yourself, or sift around like SMF for feature you want enabled (assuming they are up-to-date and compatible). But they lack some of the essential features right off the vanilla software that the paid ones give.

[10] Shark: luckily you can code php. hehehe

On top of that the paid ones require reoccurring fee's, f you want to keep the latest version. They only give you the current version at the time of payment. If you want to keep getting the latest of their software, you want to keep paying those annual fee's. Sometimes those fee's are the same price as the original, sometimes it's at 10-50% reduced the original price.

[10] Shark: wow thats lame

And in the end, does all the payments and money that went into it and kept it current really paid off? Do the people use the site as much as they use to? Or did the site die off because the content was irrelevant or the staff didn't do a good job at keeping the community around with fresh content and updates? And make newcomers welcomed?

[10] Shark: That's one of the many reasons why i like to always make newcomers welcome. I don't like losing fans/supporters because of a bad staffing or community. If there was a way for you to get paid by site usage then it would pay off and would be worth it.

It can for a time. But again if that last reason kicks in, then it can make it difficult as the start up was

[10] Shark: "for a time"

[10] Shark: Yea but again it ends up boiling down to friendliness and good staff