Possible Alternative - View From The Boundary

Speaking for myself I'd certainly be interested in finding out more...

Sounds great - a ready-to-run forum not restricted to just one thread (e.g. Cricket 24/7) or under the umbrella of a competitor (Sussex - very kind of you to have us here but there's no denying it's a bit weird) or best suited to one sentence contributions (e.g. Facebook).

I've joined and started a thread.

You are very welcome to exercise your membership here and post on any general cricket topic at any time and we shall always respect your views. We are the Unofficial Sussex forum and don't claim to be the voice of the county, but instead a group of cricket lovers who (mostly) watch Sussex games. Good luck and best wishes.

With ProBoard you have no control over the database unfortunately plus the ads shown on the site all the revenue goes to proboards. 

By having your own one you've got control over the hosting, database, forum software, look of the site and you can use custom code. It's just a lot more flexible really. 

I like to have it set up that each county has 1 or 2 mods from their supporters so they have control of their own section. Then the admin have an overall control of the site and are there to more overview it.

You can add boards onto each counties section, I just hadn't configured them because I hadn't been asked if I'm honest, I've added a matches and players section to the Sussex section just as a quick demo of what it looks like.

forum.viewfromtheboundary.com/index.php?board=32.0

Just to clarify, for the benefit of anyone reading the discussion and without acting as a ProBoards spokesman, that:

Control of the database - yes, that belongs to ProBoards and is a downside since it isn't transferrable to any new forum either within ProBoards or to any other software. However ProBoards have shown themselves to be very responsible over the three years we've been associated with them.

Ad revenues - the option originally chosen, which we've adhered to, is a free site which means ProBoards make money by selling ads. We could opt for paying for the site and then hooking up with a website monetiser (and I can sense flashblade's hackles rising as I type the filthy bastardised word) like Adsense, but it is a lot of effort for fairly low rewards. Worse, perhaps, is the incentive to get more traffic to accrue more advertising revenue which would inevitably result in clickbait posting, increasing quantity but driving down quality. I don't want to get involved in that game.

Hosting - as stated, that is managed by ProBoards and they do a pretty good job. A few times there have been system outages, but seldom long-lasting and with fully restored and backed-up data. They have an excellent and very responsive Support team and the Support board is full of useful information and tips. It is a source of great satisfaction to me personally that I don't have to worry about the hosting site, the server capacity or bandwidth issues.

Forum software/look of the site/custom code - Firstly it appears to be quite robust and is regularly updated, and I think offers quite a few options for the user. I'd be very glad of any feedback from people on this forum who want to do something that it doesn't seem to allow, because there is potential to enhance in a number of ways, such as the Add image to post feature, embedding links from other social media platforms and so on. Then the look and feelo of the site has changed a little as I've introduced new design functions from a library, but I've been guided by the opinions of users who wanted a clear, simple typeface and orthodox colours. We can have things like

if you like and I'm always happy to receive suggestions, but I sense a certain conservatism . As far as custom code there are quite a number of things we have done, again plundering from libraries or Support tips, like crating thr Newest Threads button, customising birthday messages (coming soon to a birthday near you) and clicking on the date/time of posting to go straight to the last post in the thread. Again, there is a wealth of stuff available and I try to suggest opportunities, some that don't meet with approval like the late unlamented Dislike button, but it would really help me if members wrote to say: I want to do this, is it possible?

All of which does not detract in any way from the very good qualities of VFTB and their very professional Administrator and technical team. Whatever decision the former WAK members make is up to themselves and I wish them all well and will help in any way I can. And as I have said before, please don't stop posting here on other topics, we welcome your new and possibly different thoughts.

 

Good summary, HHS. Personally, I think the introduction of the two features you mention would make life much easier -  "Add image to post feature, embedding links from other social media platforms"

Are there any downsides if we introduce these?

What do others think?