PM's (Private Messages) on the forum

wmrcomputers

wmrcomputers

Stafford PC & laptop repair specialist
Mainly for ADMIN really, but thought i'd post it as a thread to see other people's thoughts too.... but is there any way the message storage available to users can be increased? Sometimes 10 messages can fill up rapidly and it then prevents other users from sending. I'm not the only person this week who slightly derailed a thread to tell someone their message box is full.

Probably not possible either but a nice flashing warning in the site navigation to say it's full would be better. Something that wouldn't go away until you did something about it?
 
db

db

#chaplife
yeah, there were a lot of features we were supposed to get that never appeared (*cough* birthday notifications *cough*) lol.. stafford forum seems determined to stay web 1.0 ;)
 
gdavies

gdavies

Well-Known Forumite
a lot of implementations are simply to add as alot are addons for forums. lets just hope some features do get added, admins time may be limited and to be honest i have not noticed that there is moderators as yet so must just be down to admin, Although the warning does come up when your message box is full but its only a line of text just where you get the alert to tell you off the message
 
Admin

Admin

You there; behave!
Staff member
gdavies said:
a lot of implementations are simply to add as alot are addons for forums.
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Not with PunBB, I'm afraid, which is the platform that Stafford Forum runs on. I have added a lot of features that aren't standard (e.g. Private Messaging), but this required editing the PHP directly and there are no simple plug-ins, unfortunately.

gdavies said:
lets just hope some features do get added, admins time may be limited and to be honest i have not noticed that there is moderators as yet so must just be down to admin
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You are correct, it is just little ol' me running the shop. The place isn't big enough to warrant a team of Moderators, and besides, I'm a self-confessed control freak. ;)

PunBB as a platform is dead in the water in my opinion, so I have been looking into the possibility of migrating The Forum to something else recently. The obvious choice would be vBulletin, but this costs about £50 a year to lease, so on top of the existing hosting costs it's not really something I want to pay (bear in mind that The Forum has no advertising and generates no revenue).

The Forum is staying as it is for the time being, I'm afraid, but as I say I am considering options. :)
 
shoes

shoes

Well-Known Forumite
what about a forum fund raiser event, surely hosting/domain and vBUlletin can't be much more than £150/year?
 
My Name is URL

My Name is URL

Well-Known Forumite
Could someone (and i'm not offering here) sponsor the forum? Surely £50 a year to get their banner across the top of the forum would be attractive and wouldn't detract from the site at all?
 
tek-monkey

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
IMO once costs start appearing, and sponsors are needed, it all gets a bit less fun. Well, for Admin anyway!
 
wmrcomputers

wmrcomputers

Stafford PC & laptop repair specialist
Not really.....

How about a Paypal DONATE button stating the funds required once each year. I'd quite happily bung a few quid this way when i have some spare cash from an eBay sale in my account, and I'd hope there would be others prepared to do the same??
After all it's not "admin's" forum, it's all of ours. And personally I like being part of it :)
 
Admin

Admin

You there; behave!
Staff member
tek-monkey said:
IMO once costs start appearing, and sponsors are needed, it all gets a bit less fun. Well, for Admin anyway!
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Indeed!

wmrcomputers said:
Not really.....

How about a Paypal DONATE button stating the funds required once each year. I'd quite happily bung a few quid this way when i have some spare cash from an eBay sale in my account, and I'd hope there would be others prepared to do the same??
After all it's not "admin's" forum, it's all of ours. And personally I like being part of it :)
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To be honest, I'd feel bad about taking money off you all. :/

If everyone thinks this is a good road to go down, however, please let me know in this thread. Moving to vBulletin would open up a lot of possibilities for The Forum, but whether those possibilities are worth your money is for you to decide, I guess!
 
My Name is URL

My Name is URL

Well-Known Forumite
tek-monkey said:
IMO once costs start appearing, and sponsors are needed, it all gets a bit less fun. Well, for Admin anyway!
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If it was serious sponsoring requiring people knocking on doors and cold calling then I would agree. But for £50 a year surely some local business could offer a sponsorship (or just donation) so literally all admin would need to do is cash the cheque and stick the sponsors banner on the top of the page.

Places like Castle Tavern / Tequila Red would surely have done something like this? (Obviously not now though).
 
db

db

#chaplife
vbulletin can look well fugly though, so if we go down that route make sure you get someone with a decent eye to provide a skin, innit!

gk's idea of getting a sponsor is a good one though.. i see what tek is saying about ad's being a faff, but surely a single banner ad wouldn't be too hard to organise, and i would have thought it would be worth £50 a year to someone?

mind you, that would then mean finding that someone and convincing them to place an ad.. does stafford forum have a PR/marketing department? :teef:
 
wmrcomputers

wmrcomputers

Stafford PC & laptop repair specialist
Just been looking at the vBulletin website, and the leased license is £55 a year, but you can also get an OWNED licence for indefinate use for just £100. Owning it seems to make FAR more sense to me.

I'll contribute a fiver if 19 others would join me? lol
 
S

Sofa

I'm a Staffooooooordian
shoes said:
what about a forum fund raiser event, surely hosting/domain and vBUlletin can't be much more than £150/year?
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Ah, Shoes, you do have some great ideas, I will give you that! A gig/party/quiz/auction/bbq fund raiser would be surely the easiest and most hassle-free way to get a sum like that together...
 
shoes

shoes

Well-Known Forumite
I have lots of good ideas just most of them unwelcome lol.

Don't really have any skillz to bring to this one other than a photographic record of the event and i'll happily do some snazzy advertising shizzle too if needed...
 
gdavies

gdavies

Well-Known Forumite
Admin said:
If everyone thinks this is a good road to go down, however, please let me know in this thread. Moving to vBulletin would open up a lot of possibilities for The Forum, but whether those possibilities are worth your money is for you to decide, I guess!
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I am a big geek when it comes to web hosting i ran pimphostin for 4 years and took on competition like 1&1 and at least i had a fun name. - I would be more than happy to provide this forum with free web hosting and also would make the donation of £50 for a year no problem.

admin said:
PunBB as a platform is dead in the water in my opinion, so I have been looking into the possibility of migrating The Forum to something else recently. The obvious choice would be vBulletin, but this costs about £50 a year to lease, so on top of the existing hosting costs it's not really something I want to pay (bear in mind that The Forum has no advertising and generates no revenue).
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There is alot of other options other than vbulletin and punbb. Admin drop me a pm and i can show you other options and provide you time to test out and play with them, also this would be done on a full domain for free too.

admin said:
You are correct, it is just little ol' me running the shop. The place isn't big enough to warrant a team of Moderators, and besides, I'm a self-confessed control freak. wink
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thats all well and good but no one person has the time to control 684 and growing members. In event of moderators an admin can set up parts on a forum to see exactly what a mod does etc. That is always handy drop me a pm if you want me to help out which i am sure i can
 
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