Okay. You have a charter. You have a flag. You have members. But you need a cool place to hang out and talk and do allaince business, right? A plain ol' invisionfree forum doesn't cut it.

Version 1.3
I. Introduction
II. Leaving Invisionfree
III. A Comparison of different free forum software
IV. Now That You Have Decided...
1. Free Hosting
2. Paid Hosting
V. Hey look, you have options! (People who choose a free forum system LOOK HERE!)
VI. The End.... or is it?
VII. Setting up an IRC channel

Version History:
1.3 Added list of forums I can convert off of
1.2 Added Setting up an IRC Channel
1.1 Added Hey look, you have options!
1.0 Guide Made

I. Introduction
Okay guys, Invisionfree is not a decent forum system. Neither is proboards or anything like that. You need an actual forum system that you can control. You need to be able to modify the files whenever you want, and you need to be able to do whatever you want with your forums. Free forums do not allow you to back up your forum. How unfair is that? Don't you think you should be able to have a backup of your forum in case you want to go to a different service? Well with InvisionFree, you must pay them in order to be able to get your forum database. Shouldn't you be able to get it for free?

II. Leaving Invisionfree
To leave invisionfree, you can either pay invisionfree on a pay scale based on the amount of posts on your forum, or you can use a script to conver your forum to another forum system (covered in part 3). Leaving invisionfree can be hard. It can take a little while for your members to get used to the change. However, leaving InvisionFree is the best option in the end, because having control over your forum is essential to success. Getting off of InvisionFree is rather simple. I can convert people off of InvisionFree, Proboards, Zetaboards, and a couple of other forum systems. QUERY ME ON IRC IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN CONVERSION

Forum Systems I can convert off of:

• ActiveBoards
• Forumotion
• InvisionFree
• ProBoards
• SuddenLaunch
• Yuku
• Zetaboards
• phpBB
• IPB
• Vbulletin
• And Many More!

III. A Comparison of different free forum software
Paid:
Vbulletin:
Pros: Widely Used, Has a large community
Cons: Bloated, Not very friendly for people with subpar internet
Cost: $180 for the license and then $60 a year for updates to it

Invision Power Board (IPB):
Pros: Used by a lot of CN players, good community and support
Cons: Database and Bandwidth Hog, has vulnerabilities unless you update to the newest version as soon as it comes out
Cost: $149.99 for the boards. You get 6 months of support and updates. It costs $25 to access upgrades after that.

Free:
Simple Machines Forum (SMF):
Pros: Free, excellent community, Great Mod Making Community
Cons: The themes are lacking, but you can create your own. The support can take a little longer than the above boards, because volunteers do the support for SMF

PHP Bulletin Board (phpBB):
Pros: More advanced admin panel, Quicker Support than SMF because it has a larger support community
Cons: More Advanced Admin Panel, Mods are harder to install, Updates take longer to install, many security vulnerabilities.

Summary: Use IPB or SMF. Those are my recommendations. However, you should research which forum system would suit YOU best.

IV. Now That You Have Decided...
Now That You Have Decided the forum system of your choice, where will you host it? You will need a place to put all of these files.
1. Free Hosting
Free hosting is the cheapest (obviously) option, yet it can also be the most dangerous one. When picking a free host, you need to choose one that has been around for a while. It also needs to have a decent reputation. Why does it need to have a good reputation? Because a lot of hosts with deals that look amazing are run by teenagers who do not have the money to support the hosting very long. You want a place with a great reputation. You will also need a place that supports PHP and MySQL (at least one database). With Free Hosting, you will probably have to put a small ad or a link back to the hosts site in order to have a site with them.. You can look up reviews for Free Web Hosts Here and Here. Research is your friend. My Recommendation for a free host is OkamiHost. I have heard good things about them.

2. Paid Hosting
Ahh. Paid Hosting. You put your own money into it and you can get some nice results. However, this is as dangerous as free hosting in some regards. Instead of little kids out for a quick buck, there are adults out to scam people. This is known as Overselling. It means that they promise everyone a deal like 100 GB Disk Space and 1 Terabyte of Bandwidth (Transfer) a month. No server can realistically support such a demand. In reality, they have an invisible cap (usually set at 10% of what they actaully promise you). Now for Paid Hosting, you need to figure out what is the best for your price, while not overselling.
Examples of Overselling Webhosts (If you are on them, get off of them and onto a good one):
Bluehost
Siteground
Dreamhost
Servage
iPower
iPowerweb
1&1
GoDaddy

Examples of good webhosts:
Galaxy Hosts (NpO uses them)
ApisNetworks (NPO, ODN, MCXA, and other alliances use them)
Charlottez Web (Despite the name I have heard it is excellent)
GC Solutions

The Golden Rule of picking out a paid webhost is: If it looks too good to be true, it is probably an overseller. Also get a webhost that uses cPanel

V. Hey look, you have options! (People who choose a free forum system LOOK HERE!)
You have a copy of your InvisionFree forum. You have selected your webhost. Now you need to install your forum system. You have two options. You can use Fantastico, in which you click and it fully installs a board one version behind (I don't recommend, especially for SMF, it leaves about 30 MB of useless files on your server). Or you can go to the site of the forum system, download the newest version, upload everything to the site via FTP (File Transfer Protocol). It will take longer, but your forum will be a happier one in the end.

VI. The End.... or is it?
I hope this helps some people or opens their eyes to better webhosting. If you wish to contact me on IRC, I am typically idling in #mushroom on irc.coldfront.net. Ask for bros. Don't query me because I have two computers. I will query you. Also, if I forgot anything, please tell me

VII. Setting up an IRC channel
Okay. You have an awesome forum. Now you notice everyone is on this "IRC" thing. IRC is Internet Relay Chat. Think of it like a huge chat room. There are many servers. However pretty much all of CN is in coldfront. irc.coldfront.net. Now you may be asking "HOW DO I GET ON THIS IRC THING?! DOES IT COST MONEY???" It is free to access and I recommend mIRC. Now that you have an IRC client, what do you do now? You fill out the things in the mIRC window, then you type this command to come onto the server:


Now you are looking at a screen that says Global Login News and stuff like that. OMG THIS IS SCARY you are thinking. Don't be scared. You need to have a name! To make your name recognizable, use this command (put it in the window you see after you connect to the server):
No spaces are allowed.

To join a channel, use the following command:


An example would be:


#nsa is the channel of the NPO. Refer to the New Alliance/IRC Combo List to find more IRC channels.

After you have chosen your name, you want to protect it, type the following command:


When you get the email, copy what it says into a server window, NOT INTO A CHANNEL

Now, you don't want to type all of that again to identify, right? So click Tools - Options - Options - Perform. You see a scary window. You will want to add coldfrnt to your list of servers (remember to put something in the Group Box). Select Coldfront (or the name you gave it) from the dropdown. Click Enable Perform on Connect. Now in this perform box you see, put this in it:


Let's say you want to join channels on connecting? Use this command:


How to Secure an IRC channel:
Your Alliance needs a private chat to talk in. Passwords aren't secure. The best thing you can do is restrict the channel. You can do this with this command:


But until you add people to the Access List nobody will be able to join it. To add someone to the access list:


30 gives voice (+). Anything below 30 doesn't. 50 gives ops (@). 100 gives Super OPs (SOPs or &)

Nicknames must be registered in order to be in a restricted channel.

An In-Depth guide to IRC by yetanothername

Good tips.

good read. Now, about those that are SMF theme dumb, who should they goto to make a custom theme?

Listen to this man. He knows what he's talking about.

MFO uses php. Feel free to drop by and look at the customization we've done with it. www.mrfixitonline.com. It's a pretty good system. We've modified it for correspondence chess, changed the editor, etc.

You can base one off of the default theme, you can use your own custom colors and images.

This is a nice and comprehensive guide, hope people are paying attention. Excellent, you rock.

Also custom themes are dumb luck; either you have a genius in the house or you don't.

Well for SMF, you can base a theme off of the default skin using a couple of sites. I know of one that has an SMF theme Generator.

Even more genius. Do you ever stop?

I fully admit my ignorance here. I was blessed in the past with a skinning genius. Figured everyone needed one of those .

Or if you have connections you can get a good free web host that's free free, with no obligations

I like my domain name, anyway.

Also, I personally very strongly recommend SMF, SMF is amazing software.

Personal thought: If an alliance bases its quality and success on its forum, then it probably isn't a very good alliance.

Side note: GGA uses invisionfree, and I'd say we're doing tolerably, wouldn't you say

More like Invisionfail

Of course, I'll bash anything that isn't SMF.

I echo this statement

nice guide

SMF is nice. I set it up for my friend's comic site. I recommend it as well. You can download and install packages (plugins, themes, etc) easily, it's quite nice.

I currently have Netfirms as my webhost. 250GB disk space and 2000GB of bandwidth for 10 dollars a month (sometimes with specials, even lower!). I have went over 1500GB and I didn't hit a "cap".

Both quality hosts.

Nice guide, bros.

A good summary. SMF was what I used for another one of our clans, and the only thing about it I really preferred compared to Invision was how insanely easy skins were to install.

Bros, you're awesome.

This should be pinned somewhere.

Oh, and masking was pretty easy as well.

Bros kicks $@!. About time this got writ'.

We use PHPBB and we're quite satisfied with it . It's incredibly customizable and easy to use.
With PHPBB there's no need to ever switch to a paid forum unless you have forums which have a tremendous amount of visitors per day/posts per hour.

By the way, I expected something else here . I was kinda hoping for advice on who to mask, how to setup your admin rights and how to prevent the wrong people from gaining access, what are good masking systems/forum setups etc .

whats a forum

Having used pretty much all of the different types of forms listed above, i personally prefer IP boards, but as has been states smf is quality for free.

Good op, would read again.

Also Academic subforum worthy?

bros knows his ****. Listen to him.

I'd say so.

I've both IF, IP.Board, phpBB and SMF. I'd rank them in this order:

IP.Board > SMF > phpBB > IF

And on the note of overselling, I havn't had that problem with Dreamhost. I have a friend who runs a popular IP.Board setup over there and they havn't bothered him at all. (He upgraded to their VPS' recently, so that might be what the problem is.) And note: Please for the love of admin/god stay away from any host that does cPanel.

Do remember every hosting company that makes money oversells to some extent, its simply stupid not to

The question is whether the price is reasonable enough that the hosting company can have a scalable solution so that they can quickly upgrade their servers when they start to get closer to using their full resources

This works because 90% of shared hosting users use under 10% of the hosting specifications they are given

Great guide. I've been converted from IPB to SMF

You need to have a sweet place to hang out for the alliance to thrive. If you HQ is boring, why bother checking it out every day? That's why some alliances have an arcade.

You guys use invisionfree because bilrow won't convert



Netfirms is another overseller I forgot. Haha.



Everyone has their tastes among the free forum systems. I prefer SMF, but I have heard phpbb is excellent. I can make a little guide later on how to mask and stuff for SMF, and a general security guide.



Ya.



Do people even read that forum?



<3



That sounds good. Dreamhost oversells. I believe when ES had an account there, they didn't notice when he ran a shoutcast server on their shared hosting

I echo that sentiment. STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM ANYTHING THAT DOESN'T HAVE cPanel. And I think I will add another part of the guide.

I think you misread what I said. What I said was. STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM ANYTHING THAT HAS cPanel.

Bros is a real genius... !

He made a cute forum for the NpO!

And we have Arcade!!!!!

Having said such thing, I have no clue about what he's talking about here.... !

Ephie works for low rates.

you should throw invisionfree on there - if you know your way around a CSS stylesheet its quite easy to skin - check out: http://z11.invisionfree.com/ordorecolitus/index.php? for a prime example.

edit: I see this has already been suggested... check the link anyways

If you had read the OP, you would have read that bros hates IF and actively suggusts people move away from it. And you CSS is screwed up in Opera.

...why the hell wouldn't you want cPanel? It is awesome



Hahaha. NotSane made that new theme.



You can get a SMF theme based off of the default theme for free. You can look up themes on the SMF site. You can also ask for help on the SMF site, and specify free or paid. Free work is usually slower.



Do you have access to your database? Then it isn't what the point of this topic is

And the CSS looks.. off

Because every time I've used cPanel it's been buggy and slow. And not to mention it has screwed up my DNS settings several times.

Now both the custom-built control panels that I've used from Dreamhost and Verio have been fast and were built to their *exact* specifications so it was nicely integrated (with their services)

...How the hell does it screw up your DNS?

You have time to make this guide but no time to update WUT Continuum House?



Still, it's nice guide though.

EDIT: Grammer

Wasn't on the computer with sims. And I look like this at the moment:

I added a subdomain, and what ever I did it never did work. When I submited a support ticket, they told me that the DNS was pointing to the wrong IP (It was one off in the fourth octet) and that even it it was pointing to the right IP it wouldn't work because the file premissions were wrong.

And good luck with your surgery.

Sounds like a problem with the host.

Not surgery

Just a 48 hour home EEG.

SMF is the way to go. It's free but feels like a professional board. Only problem is you need someone talented to make you a custom skin.

ApisNetworks (NPO, ODN, MCXA, and other alliances use them) is very reliable and they respond to tickets in a matter of seconds. That is where bilrow.com is at. Probably one of the better webhostings as far as customer support I have ever used.

Yetanothername was beaten up as a kid by cPanel, don't mind him.

Was not....

That was yetanotherloser, my bother, who we don't talk about....

Galaxy-hosts is similar, from what I have heard.

I should add the MKs host to the list of good hosts

cPanel is awesome. I am in the process if setting up a new SMF forum now, which is my first experience away from invision and I am using x10 for the hosting, although after I installed the SMF software last night and got up to work on it this morning I keep timing out when I try to connect to my site or my cPanel

Search for x10hosting on the SMF forums. That should give you a guide

It was them apparently I just have awful timing (as usual ) and the server they put my site on has been unstable the last two days, it is back up and running now

haha. But they have a special guide

I was just going to say we use invisionfree and nothing is really wrong with it.

*shrugs* I've almost hit my bought limit and they did not cap me. Good speeds and great space. Also great support, respond within minutes or a few hours.

You don't have full control over your forums.

I think you guys are one of the few older alliances still on IvF. Get out of September 2006 and come into August 2008.