I remember vaguely, about discussion bulletin boards (vs blogs?), but wanted to compile a list just as a matter of course.
vBulletin (http://www.vbulletin.com/)
vBulletin is a powerful, scalable and fully customizable forums package for your web site. It has been written using the Web’s quickest-growing scripting language; PHP, and is complimented with a highly efficient and ultra fast back-end database engine built using MySQL.
vBulletin is the ideal community solution for all medium-to-large sites.
Leased Option: $85
Licensed Option: $160
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phpBB (http://www.phpbb.com/)
phpBB is a high powered, fully scalable, and highly customizable Open Source bulletin board package. phpBB has a user-friendly interface, simple and straightforward administration panel, and helpful FAQ. Based on the powerful PHP server language and your choice of MySQL, MS-SQL, PostgreSQL or Access/ODBC database servers, phpBB is the ideal free community solution for all web sites.
Cost: Free (open source)
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These are the two that I am most familiar with and didn’t know if the bulletin board system was still in contention.
Best-
Lisa
Thanks, Lisa.
While looking up something else, I found -
In short, PunBB is a fast and lightweight PHP-powered discussion board. It is released under the GNU Public License. Its primary goal is to be a faster, smaller and less graphic alternative to otherwise excellent discussion boards such as phpBB, Invision Power Board and vBulletin.
www.punbb.org
www.invisionboard.com
Comment by nancy — April 5, 2005 @ 2:10 pm
So, is the bulletin board option still in contention for your solutions?
Comment by lisa — April 5, 2005 @ 9:22 pm
I don’t know enough about blogs yet to figure out what the sweet spot is for a (multi-user) blog vs. a bulletin board.
What I see so far –
blogs - good for
Limited posting community (permissions set based on personal knowledge?)
Limited domain of discussion (relatively few main topics or the GUI gets pretty awkward)
Rich content (e.g. allowing file uploads and such)
Good support for RSS, though I haven’t yet figured out the trackback stuff
bulletin boards -
I’ve experience with a few, but not much administrative experience. They seem to have richer user authentication schemes (though they may be somewhat more awkward) and a better GUI for categorizing a large set of dicsussion topics. The method for “subscribing” to a discussion may be simpler for naive users who haven’t made the leap to RSS, and the GUI indicators of which boards have new messages are pretty much required, I think, if the total discussion has lots of activities. I haven’t actually used any that allow file uploads, but some do, I think.
For NC Women United, in particular, I think the list of topics that folks other than “webmaster” would post to would be
Action Alerts
Events
Jobs
so, I think a blog would do. But if we grow …
I may be biased because my clients are, typically, *really* small…
Comment by nancy — April 6, 2005 @ 9:43 am