Good place to start a community forum

Started by LorenM • 8 replies • 1122 views

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LorenM (Kentucky)
Posts: 5

Posted:

Hello,
At the my community's last meeting I volunteered to research and find a forum for all residents to use. The purpose of the forum would be to increase voting participation, circulate information and keep people connected in a neighborly way in general. Does anyone use a particular site or have any suggestions?

Thanks !

TimB4 (Tennessee)
Posts: 21,047

Posted:

If you want to keep forum spam down, you need a site that either you have control of or is well managed by others.

I probably spend 20 - 30 min. a day deleting forum spam.

Community123.com is a good company and sponsors this site (click their logo in the upper left corner).
You could just do a facebook page (but I personally don't like that)
If your Association has a web site most can add forums onto it.
If you don't have a website, there are plenty of companies that can set one up for you at varying costs.
You could start groups within yahoo or other similar sites.
Do an internet search for "forum hosting" or "start a forum for free" and you get lots of links.

JohnO6 (Georgia)
Posts: 424

Posted:

What Tim said . . . .

LorenM (Kentucky)
Posts: 5

Posted:

Ok, I'll try the search for Free forums, I'm pretty sure my managment company will not pay hosting fees for us. The site we currently have is very archaic and seems to have zero potential to be interactive. Thanks !

LorenM (Kentucky)
Posts: 5

Posted:

Oh and about the spam, I didnt think about that. I really hope I dont have to constantly police the forum.

JohnM48 (Pennsylvania)
Posts: 89

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By LorenM on 11/22/2011 3:46 PM
I really hope I dont have to constantly police the forum.

If you leave posting open to guests, or allow anyone to register an account, you WILL be policing spam - probably daily.

Since this a forum for your association, I would set it up so that the forum (1) was visible only to members, and (2) would allow posting only be members (yes, both steps are necessary).

Whether or not your association has a forum is a decision for your board, not your management company.

Association President

SteveM9 (Massachusetts)
Posts: 3,699

Posted:

The two solutions below are good resources. They are both free. So even if your HOA decided to not update/pay for their website, these groups will live on forever. Both include a live/daily/monthly email to show everyone what people posted and many other tools.

Yahoo Groups
Google Groups

LorenM (Kentucky)
Posts: 5

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By JohnM48 on 11/22/2011 4:40 PM

Posted By LorenM on 11/22/2011 3:46 PM
I really hope I dont have to constantly police the forum.

Ok, I will make sure I use both of those settings. The board thought my idea of starting a forum was a good one so I was asked to do it.

LorenM (Kentucky)
Posts: 5

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By SteveM9 on 11/22/2011 4:41 PM
The two solutions below are good resources. They are both free. So even if your HOA decided to not update/pay for their website, these groups will live on forever. Both include a live/daily/monthly email to show everyone what people posted and many other tools.

Yahoo Groups
Google Groups

Ok, I already use both for personal reasons I'll look into that. I just did a search and created a simple site using forumotion. http://voww.forumotion.com/

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