I Suppose this Is Where this thread belongs

[gprime]

If this is the wrong place to post it, I appologize. Feel free to move it.

Anyways, I had an idea of a new community:

A forum for those who are in my grade at my high school. It would probably have a domain like fhcclassof2007.com or something like that. It would be designed solely for them. That is, nobody from other grades, no staff, ect. But at the same time it would serve multiple purposes. On the one hand, it would serve as a place to get homework help or figure out what you missed in class. It would also be a place to discuss school sports and extracurriculars. And of course there would be forums dedicated to the discussion of the city (in general) and what it has to offer.

Some ideas I had with it:
1) Intergration with edline.net
2) (If it can be done)--get a list of the ID card #'s for those in my grade, and require that they input theirs to register, with it only being on the usable list until someone has signed up using it.
3) Install a blog mod for the students to blog about their day.
4) Provide one of those download centers with homework resources, and the last x number of episodes of the school news.
5) Use the Geek Article System to archive the school newpapers and whatnot.
6) Install an arcade so they have something to unwind with.
7) Install a photo gallery and that myspace mod so that it still has a fun side.
Install a jukebox mod so that student musicians can share their works.
9) Install other mods that increase its functionality and enjoyability.
10) Use a usergroup system to create a "Guys" and "Girls" set of boards.
11) Install a shoutbox and a chat room for students to discuss whatever they wish.
12) Provide college resources for those who seek them.
13) provide general chat areas for students to get to know one another in an out of class sense.
14) Add something like vBookie to bet (points not money) on school elections, sporting events, ect.
15) A multi-calender system, which allows students to keep track of things like sporting events, days off, colleges visiting ect.
16) Some type of additional calender system which will allow a select batch of approved students post class assignments.
17) Custom profile fields that allow them to fill in things like courses, thus aiding in support and schedualing.

And things of that nature. The idea struck me a few days ago, over which time I've been thinking about what features it would need (basically the above list and a few functionality add-ons).

Numbers 1&2 will be hard as hell. Even if I could get compliance on their end, I'd need some serious help implementing a mod like that. So if need be, those components could be scrapped.

But I digress.

Now here's where I'm at. I have the above idea, which is fairly solid and highly feasable. I realize that vB is certainly the only platform that would be good for something like this. Much as I love IPB 2.1, it is just too far behind in terms of its ability to handle some of those functions. And phpBB, in addition to taking forever to mod, would require that I pay for custom scripting, which I have no plans of doing.

So then, here is where the issue arises. I have no money. And clearly this isn't the type of project where you could slap up a ton of ads to foot the bill. So, first off, what should I do in terms of hosting or a domain? How likely is it I could work out some sort of donation of space deal? And do you have any companies in mind for that. As to vB, I know they occasionally give away liscenes, but usually in the context of a contest through sites which purchased a liscense from them in the first place. So, what is that chance that they'd donate a liscene to something like this? And for that matter, if they wouldn't, how would you suggest I go about getting one. Remeber, this is high school, so expecting broke teenagers to donate is not a viable option, and I don't have the cash needed to foot the bill for a liscene.

In terms of skinning I suppose it would be fine. I'd probably download a few skins from vBulliten.org. After all, much as I like the skins seen on sites like vbskinworks, I really couldn't justify spending $20 a skin for 2-3 skins. But beyond that, if anybody could handle a free custom skin request (shelly) with matching banner and rank images (because mine suck) that matched the school colors and whatnot, would be great. Of course, if its not possible, I can make due without that.

And finally, I'd like to get any opinions, feature suggestions, and so forth from you all with regards to the practicality, worthiness, ect of a project like this.

[Ex0dus]

Beofre i post anything else, im a phpBB fanboy, so most everything ill refer to from here will be based upon as if you used a phpBB (because ive never used vB)

Most everyone of those except 1/2 would be feasible with phpBB

1 most likely due to coding difficulty and 2 because of potential legal implications (ususally were not supposed to use school ids for anything else than school administrative tasks)

The work around to this is to obtain a list of students in your grade and add them all via your admin control panel (there is a mod for phpbb that does this). In this way you can already sort them as boy/girl groups and you dont have to worry about the school id thing and thered be no need or ability for anyone else to register (since after that you can totally disable registrations).

Yes you would know their username and password, but you can allow a grace period for them to change their username if they desire and the option to change password is always availiable. I reccomend having a systematic approach to making their username and pw so you never need to give everyone a hard copy of their username and pass (less chance of someone taking someone elses account this way) and you can easily give flyers to everyone in your grade with generic instructions.

past this workaround, your hardest thing to do is to get people to want to come to your site, and get people thinking about it. I reccomend holding a poll among your classmates as to whether or not theyd be interested in this before actually going through it.

There are many free hosters out there and you can always use a url forwarder to hide the subdomain the hoster would give you. If i were allowed to host music, id personally help you out (as i can provide the rest of the stuff you need) as far as that went.

Since you dont have any funds to put into this, and your userbase isnt likely to donate or appreciate ads, then id suggest just going with phpbb if vb doesnt give you a license. It beats having nothing.

your project is an extremely interesting one, ill be sure to keep my eye on this as it progresses ^_^

-Ex0dus

[gprime]

Hmm, well i may have to settle for phpBB. And while I love it, I just don't think its best for this project. As to the music hosting, if you're making a serious offer, PM me and we'll talk.

[~HG~]

If you shop around I am sure you can find a decent host for around the $5 a month mark that will allow all you want to do including music.

You will need to get your host to agree to change the upload settings for music to at least 10mb as most hosts only allow uploads of 2mb so that would be the first thing you would need to negotiate.

There is a music mod for phpBB which works well but you have to remember that you could well face court proceedings if it were to breach copyright laws. I had the mod installed on a separate forum but have since removed it due to the prosecutions taking place world wide with P2P sites.

I also think your idea is a good one but it could be restrictive because you are only allowing people in your grade at school to join. This means it will be limited in membership and it will not allow you to expand on it in the future because of that.

If you set it up to allow all the students at your school to join, then over the years the community would grow and topics from years gone by would become of historical interest to the new students who join every year.

Good luck with what ever you decide and just remember one thing. phpBB is totally FREE !!!
_________________
~HG~

|| Click here to view all my phpBB Communities ||

[gprime]

HG, I understand your point about membership. Here's why I've made the choices I have:

1) Too many forums (like College or New Student) boards would be irrelevant to far too many people.
2) There would be too much drama, and things like hazing of freshmen.
3) Homework support wouldn't work too well, as the forums would be to expansive.
4) At that rate, I'd have to allow staff access, thus removing the comfort that students feel, and ruining the site atmosphere.
5) The relationship formation aspect is alot more practical when only one grade is involved.
6) The additional hosting implications would run far too much costwise.
7) At some point, if I went with your suggestion, I'd need to find someone capable of runing it, transfer it to them, while still making sure it didn't fall apart.

[Lady Syren]

Just an idea as I've only skimmed over this topic.

[Capmaster]