Streetlife

Hullo Pete,
I mentioned phpBB to Lucy. Thanks to a load of work I've been out of the loop for a week or so. It's quite likely this is now under way but I can direct you to some successful implementations of this free forum software.
http://www.phpbb.com/

Best - Ian

In my experience it's really easy to get tied up in the management of something like phpBB if you install and maintain it yourself, plus anything PHP based has the server admin, updates and security to consider. Security particularly is a big concern, phpBB used to get hacked all the time.

Google Groups would be my first choice - easy to manage, users can choose how to receive updates (as they happen, daily digest, etc.), threaded conversations, easy to administrate, and really easy to sign up for and use.

Hullo James L,

This was discussed at the first meeting. Both Google groups and Yahoo! Groups were considered and neither won. Apparently server facilities are available and my vote is for phpBB on the grounds that it offers exactly what's required, and that there are so many successful implementations.

Given the relatively small number of users, I doubt that the hackers would give us a great deal of attention. Yahoo! Groups are widely hacked through illicit access to individual users and the same will go for Google.

Best - Ian

Thanks Ian,
We'll definitely discuss on Friday 6th. I'm in favour of a managed service like google as well. We'll see what other people experiences are. Whatever we use I'm a bit worried about the extra work it takes for people to manage two accounts (Streetlife + discussion forum). Although street life can be noisy when you have many threads, at least its got people talking online which is 90% of the job done.

Guys & Girls why dont we use a private or open group on facebook? I am sure most of us are on Facebook. Afterall Facebook can be used as a simple forum. My gut feeling is another system, another log in and and potentially another password.

several people wanted to keep Facebook for only personal connections, not work ones.  and LinkedIn was deemed too noisy.

hi Lucy, there are settings on facebook which can be used to hide personal, contacts, walls, photos  etc from non friends. So I dont think that should be major issue.

i think one of the problems with Facebook is how often its privacy etc settings change, which we would have to keep up with, as well as the mental shift of thinking of it as a business site as well as a personal one.  i've always used it as a business site rather than a personal one, so i'm the opposite, but i can appreciate why people want to create these rules, because i too loathe the idea that one company is going to provide all the things i want ... i use gmail and constantly struggle to stop google's appetite for taking me over completely.

Privacy settings only change now and then. I think its a not a biggie as long as you have hidden everything from non friends which i think most people should do anyway.

I have to say that the megaliths of Facebook and Google frighten me off. Same for Linked-in.

There are unlikely to be more than about 300 of us. A stand-alone forum gets my vote. Easy for me to say that as my Apple machines are far from the ideal platform! Happy to assist in any other way though.

Best - Ian

hi Ian,

Why do Facebook & Google etc frighten you?

Shahid

Hullo Shahid,

Google seems to be gathering a little too much information for my comfort. I recently had to briefly join Facebook to extract some information from a group therein. I was appalled when I was presented with a list of people whom I might like to be friends with. I've had no contact with some of them for years. How does FB have that information?

Even if its methods are innocuous I still want more privacy than is afforded to FB members. No wonder that some of my customers forbid FB on systems that contain their data.

Best - Ian

hi ian,

Facebook works out who you may know by looking at the people you have in common, or what school/university etc you went and your age, linked in does some thing similar.

A lot of companies forbid facebook because their staff are spending company time on facebook when they should be work. I too have couple of companies that have asked me to disable facebook on staff browsers. 

Shahid

Hullo Shahid,

I provided FB with a false name and a false date of birth. Indeed, I submitted nothing but incorrect information. They gathered the information that they did from only one source, my e-mail address.

I cancelled membership the next day yet they wouldn't delete my account for a fortnight. Were they hoping to glean further information in that time? I think we're going off topic now!

All the best - Ian