Hosted Forum creation

Cardinal Richelieu

Hi, whats the difference between host forum and regular forums? Do you have to follow the usual forum request procedure as normal forums? I noticed the below forum request and due to lack of support it was created as a hosted forum but does not appear under the hosted forum bar but in the regional forum section as a sub forum. I wish to do the same for my own regional sub forum idea.


http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054862033

Zaph

That forum was initially created as a hosted forum before the current Region forum setup. When the Wicklow forum was created later, G&C was added to it as a sub-forum. It's been a while since anyone requested a hosted forum, the last one pre-dates the current forum request procedure. Generally a hosted forum would be for a specific purpose or for use by a like-minded group. What would you be looking for exactly?

Ken.

Follow the same route as the laughing gnome group (http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/group.php) which started out as a group it seems and then when they had the numbers made an appeal to the powers that be for a forum of their own.

Cardinal Richelieu

Zaph wrote: »

That forum was initially created as a hosted forum before the current Region forum setup. When the Wicklow forum was created later, G&C was added to it as a sub-forum. It's been a while since anyone requested a hosted forum, the last one pre-dates the current forum request procedure. Generally a hosted forum would be for a specific purpose or for use by a like-minded group. What would you be looking for exactly?

North Fingal Forum.

Zaph

OK, but why wouldn't the Dublin County North forum suffice?

Cardinal Richelieu

Zaph wrote: »

OK, but why wouldn't the Dublin County North forum suffice?

Well quite a few posters in that forum are from the North Fingal which is more rural than the South of DCN so different topics of interest and North Fingal posters fairly dominate the forum over the posters from the South of DCN in the existing sub forum. So creating a separate sub forum for us Northerns might entice back the South DCN posters to post more in the existing forum.

Dublin West Forum which has 20000 odd posts, has the two sub forums of Dublin County West and D15 while DCN has 31000 posts and only one sub forum. Or is there an exceptional reason why Dublin West has two sub forum in a less busy forum?

Zaph

Dublin 15 and Dublin West came about in much the same way, in that the posters in D15 felt that a forum covering the whole of west Dublin was a little too general. As it turns out D15 has proved to be one of the busier regional forums, and is significantly more active than Dublin West. In your case the best thing to do is start a thread in Forum Requests and go through the process there, as this would be created as a Region forum rather than hosted if it was approved.

Cardinal Richelieu

Zaph wrote: »

Dublin 15 and Dublin West came about in much the same way, in that the posters in D15 felt that a forum covering the whole of west Dublin was a little too general. As it turns out D15 has proved to be one of the busier regional forums, and is significantly more active than Dublin West. In your case the best thing to do is start a thread in Forum Requests and go through the process there, as this would be created as a Region forum rather than hosted if it was approved.

Isn't there a set number of votes you need? I vaguely remember some figure like 25 mentioned in the past. My concern while DCN has a number of active posters based in North Fingal it would have less than 25 regular posters and even some of them don't know of the Forum request forum existence that's why I was looking at the hosted forum option because my margin is so tight to start with. I know I can advertise on my sig but how effective is that?Also I imagine that a regional forum request would garner less support than say a divorce forum request because from the start it appeals to a smaller demographic of boards members. I will submit the forum request but I can't help but think I am Doooomed from the start.

Zaph

I believe the current requirement is for +18 votes. This is to ensure that there's likely to be a reasonable user base for the forum should it be created. There's no point in creating one if there's only going to be a handful of users. There are no plans to create any regional hosted forums, if a new one is to be created it must be opened in the Region category. If you post regularly in DCN, adding a sig will mean that every one of your posts there will have a link to the forum request, and it may be possible to get others to add the sig too.