Setting Up Your Forum- Boards Categories/ Permissions
Here is where the magic begins... Once your forum is online you simply login to your admin
area and there are very simple point and click, self explanatory tools you can use to create
your categories such as with tmf you see we have an
Administrative Category
General Discussion category....
Once you set up a category by simply clicking on "new category" (Will add some screen shots
shortly) and typing in the name of your new category, then you will want to set up "Boards" for
each category.
For instance, on our "General Discussion" category we have boards within it like "offline
Marketing", "The boiler room", SEO Discussion" and a few others ...
Again once you have chosen a category you simply click the link next to the "category" link in
your admin area (cpanel) that says "boards" and set up boards in that category the same way
you set up the category itself.
Note: When you go to set up your boards and initial threads and categories, MAKE SURE
they the TITLES of those boards and categories and are targeted toward your keywords. This
will help you achieve higher search rankings for your chosen keywords.
Its all very simple, even tho0ugh for a glimpse of a moment it may seem complicated until you
see how easy it is and actually get into doing it...
Im sure there will be questions as we go along here, and I will answer them as they come in...
but for now, if you have your forum online then you should be able to see in your admin area
what Im saying, and you are probably kicking yourself at how easy it is to navigate, and saying
"Why didnt I do this before?" Smiley
Moving on...
Permissions:
So then after you have set up a board you will be offered the option of going with standard
permissions (which you can also customize) or you can customize your permissions.
For instance on THIS board you are viewing I have the permissions set up so that its paid
members only and invisable to guests... and the people on this board have unlimited pms...
Basically it lists out about 20 options for "permissions" (whether or not users are allowed to
start polls...
So once you have a category set up and a board set up within the category, then you will want
to set the permissions for that board.
I have ten boards on here right now that no one can see except the members of those boards.
So while the TMF looks inactive some days from one perspective, there are invisable boards
here where there may be alot of activity happening.
Its very empowering to own your own forum, you can literally, even as a non tech set it up any
way you want to, and its literally easioer than word press.
So what you want to do now is go into your admin area and decide what categories you wanrt
ie; "admin" , "general Discussion" ...Whatever- Then set up Boards within those categories
and set the permissions. Its really rather fun if you are non techy because it gives you a big
sense of control when byou see how easily you can maniplulate your boards...
You can also set up your sign in process any way yo0u want to.
When I first started I didnt set my sign up process up, I just went wwith the standard they
alopready had in place...but later we customized it using the point and click options , so that
spammers couldnt get in.
Now it tells us if a person is red flagged as a "known spammer" on the internet, and wont let
them in without having their account reviewed... We did that by simply selecting the settings
that ask HUMAN only questions to people who sign up. This way we know it isnt a bot, and we
really dont have much trouble with spam at all.
There are a TON of things you can do, like I said it feels like alot of control when you see how
easily you can manipulate these things.
Again, every now and then you will want to hire a designer or something for things like
banners... but most of this you can easily do yourself.
Other options are theme, layout, alln kinds of cool stuff. They are set up already to a standard
mode of operation that you could almost just go with and not customize much at all, but you
may look through and see what you DO want to customize. The first customization you will
probably want is a banner.
And if you dont have a banner or logo there are a ton of people here at the TMF who will do
one for even $30.
If you need help finding a designer you can afford to design your banner dont worry, I will hook
you up, and I dont make any money off of it, but I happen to know people who will do really
ULTRA affordable GREAT work.
We can get you a banner designed for less than 50 bucks with a logo and all that good stuff.
Again, most of it is pretty simple. Almost ANYONE can run their own forum.
So, we have only covered the tip of the ice berg here, and if you are reading this, hopefully you
have your forum uploaded and you are looking through the different options in your admin
area, please feel free to ask any questions you like about it, and we will answer them here,
now I only work with SMF but most of them from what I have looked at are very similar in the
way they work... and if you are using a different platform and I dont have your answer I will get
from one of our techs here for you, but for the most part its pretty simple.
Im so glad I decidede to do this in a class setting and not a report, because there are alot of
options...you may ask about that I may not have included in a report... so please...go ahead
and ask away!