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Quickstart
How to get your forum community up
and running quickly. |
Getting started.
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If
you haven't created your
forum already, you can do it
from this link. It should
only take a few minutes.
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When you have set up your
forum you can start posting
right away, but you probably
want to make some changes,
such as changing the name of
your forum, setting up forum
categories and subforums and maybe
change the style if you are not
satisfied with the default style.
Your forum comes with hundreds of
style templates to choose from.You
can also upload your custom logo.
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Quickstart
setup.
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You manage your forum site from your
Administration control panel.
Click the link 'Go to Administration
panel' at the bottom of your
forum. (You have to be logged in for
the link to show up.) Before you
enter the panel you have to
re-authenticate yourself for
security reasons.
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Setting up forum categories and
forums
Your new forum has a default
forum category called testcategory
with one testforum in it. You most
probably want to rename this test
category and edit / add individual
forums to it.
In your admin control panel: Click 'Management' in
the main menu. Most of the settings
are easy and self explainatory.
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Changing the name and description of
your forum site.
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| You may want to edit the name
and description of your forum.
This is done from your
administration control panels
general admin section. |
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Click: 'Configuration' in the left main menu. Your forum name and many
other settings is changed
from this page. |
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If you want, you can change
the looks of your forum.
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If you are not satisfied
with the default skin template (called
Subsilver) we offer you
hundreds of different design templates to choose from.
To change to a different look:
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In the Style section
in the Admin control
panel,
click 'menu' and then
click install on any
of the templates.
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If you want to make the
style you just installed,
the default style, just
click 'Set default' in the
menu. Your forum should now
have a different style.
To check out the new
look without leaving
the admin panel,
click "preview
forum" in the main
menu. |
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| Q: |
Can I upload a custom logo
to my forum?
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| A: |
Yes, you can! Just log in
and go to the admin control
panel. Click logo in the
menu (style section) and
simply upload your logo
image. |
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Can I and my users have
custom avatars?
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Yes! Users may upload or
link to a custom avatar or
choose from the existing
avatar collection. First you
must "enable avatars" by
logging into your admin
control panel and click
Configuration. Users may
after that choose their
avatar by clicking on their
"Profile." |
| Q: |
What is the best way to promote my
forum and get many members?
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This is the golden question and
there are many answers. Here are a
few suggestions that might benefit
your forum:
- Start off by making a few posts
in your forum yourself and try
to make it as interesting as
possible.
- Tell all the people you think
might be interested in your
sites subject about your forum.
Word of mouth is a powerful
promotion technique.
- If you participate in other
online discussion forums, make a
signature at those discussions
with a link to your forum. This
can also work for email
signatures.
- Be active. By being active in
your own forum, you are helping
to promote the discussions.
- If you have an email newsletter
(ezine), use it to promote your
forum.
- If you have have interesting
text material in your forum
threads that you want to share
with the rest of the world,
submit them to social sites,
such as Propeller.com, Digg.com
or Furl.net. This can be a good
way to draw visitors.
- Start small then grow. Keep your
forum categories small (i.e. 2-3
categories) when first starting
a forum. That way all the posts
are concentrated in a small
area, making it look like you
have a lot of participants. As
your forum grows, you can expand
the categories.
- Link from articles. If you have
a regular website with articles,
add a feedback button (which
says "What do you think?") that
links to your forum so that
people can post their opinion.
- Recruit moderators. Recruit some
charismatic friends or visitors
to become moderators. They will
help keep the discussions lively
and flowing.
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In depth documentation.
Your forum has a lot of
advanced options that are
not covered in the
quickstart guide above. You
may also want to check out
the detailed manual, which is an in-depth
documentation of the
phpBB forum system. |
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Video tutorials
We have also
have provided a selection of short video tutorials on some key
areas of managing your forums, for
example setting forum
permissions, managing users,
groups, ranks, profiles etc.
Watch them here.
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If you have any technical issues you
can contact our support.
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