About OurBoard Support
This message board was originally founded on 22nd December 2010 and was called "Member Support". The purpose was to provide a venue for yuku members to support and help each other by sharing their accumulated knowledge and experience. The reason I founded this community was because yuku withdrew their official support forum, which was akin to ripping the heart out of the wider community. Not only that, the vast accumulated knowledgebase was lost, leaving people nowhere to go other than use a ticket system. When yuku founded a new official support forum, I was left with a choice. Members were unhappy to hear that I might close down and stop – yet under the conditions that was what I would have had to do – so my choice was to change the conditions.
We will continue to offer yuku help here using the same system of "members helping members". The intention is to expand on this peer to peer help principle and add to it.
We would like to encourage discussion and comparison between different types of forum software, with a split down two clear lines: Hosted Forums and Self-Hosted Forums. We will also be offering help and support for more forum systems in just the same manner.
I need to be clear about the difference between Hosted Forums and Self-Hosted Forums. In simple terms, a hosted forum is one where the software is both supplied & hosted for you, leaving you little to do other than sign-up and go. A Self-Hosted Forum is one where you have to purchase your own Domain Name, pay for your own Hosting, upload & install your own software, whether it be free like phpBB or SMF or paid like vBulletin or IP.Board.
The choices anyone is likely to make will come down to features, ability and cost. This is where comparisons are helpful. Without experience, it can be difficult to make a choice. This is where having searchable experience can help as can the ability to ask questions. There is often more than one solution to any problem too. It can happen that a choice is made for the best and circumstances change and it is no longer the best. This is where forum conversion or migration can help. If a system no longer meets your needs, it is often possible to change to another.
What makes this community different is both the variety of choice combined with people who are just like yourself. Many official forums are geared towards coders and while you may have to deal with code, it is not always necessary to be an expert. Every single one of us began by knowing nothing and learned. We've all been there and remember that feeling. Please do not feel daunted as there is a solution for everyone.