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Online Discussions - Take It To The Forums

Online discussions are quickly taking over public, face to face discussion groups. The most popular method of hosting an online discussion is by using a Forum on your website. An Internet Forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages.

There are several popular forum scripts that can be installed into your website hosting account through our Install Popular Scripts tool in the Account Manager. These scripts allow you to host a forum on your website without having to code the forum pages yourself. By using our Install Popular Scripts tool to install a forum script, we will create and configure the code and the database for you, and all you will need to do is add your personal flare!

PunBB is a fast and lightweight PHP-powered discussion board. It is released under the GNU General Public License. Its primary goals are to be faster, smaller and less graphically intensive as compared to other discussion boards. PunBB has fewer features than many other discussion boards, but is generally faster and outputs smaller, semantically correct XHTML-compliant pages.

Another popular Forum script is BbPress. BbPress is plain and simple forum software, plain and simple. It's easy to use, easy to administrate, fast and clean. But don't let its simplicity deceive you; underneath the gleam it's got some powerful features and is highly customizable.

A unique Forum script is Phorum, which was the original PHP and MySQL based Open Source forum software started in 1998. Phorum is a little different from the other web based message boards out there. It was designed to meet different needs of different web sites while not sacrificing performance or features. Phorum prides itself in offering its users freedom, which means having the ability to make your message board do what you want it to do.

PhpBB has become the most widely used Open Source forum solution since it was created in 2000. Like is predecessors, phpBB 3.0 Olympus has an easy to use administration panel and a user friendly installation process, which allows you to have a forum set up in minutes. With a large and highly customizable set of key features coupled with a standards compliant interface, phpBB will grow with, and compliment your website. With millions of installations worldwide, it is no wonder phpBB is one of the most popular ways to create and support a community.

Simple Machines Forum – SMF in short – is a free, professional grade software package that allows you to set up your own online community within minutes. Its powerful custom made template engine puts you in full control of the lay-out of your message board and with its unique SSI – or Server Side Includes – function you can let your forum and your website interact with each other. SMF is written in the popular language PHP and uses a MySQL database. It is designed to provide you with all the features you need from a bulletin board while having an absolute minimal impact on the resources of the server.

When you are ready to get started with your online discussion, you will find that adding a Forum to your website is the perfect solution. Determine which forum script fits your needs, give it your own personal style, and get started!