blog versus bulletin board

[Jacob]

Wondering about a blog for myself.
But I like the design of boards like this one - in terms of function, not necessarily appearance (and a lot of the content is total carp!).
So what about having ones own PHBB and just restricting it's usage in the way blogs are - i.e. various privileges, posts subject to approval (or free access for the chosen few) etc etc. ?
Does anyone use a forum format as a blog? Or maybe there is no clear dividing line.

And I completely ban all my usual trolls! Yeah!!

 

[Flynnwood]

The benefit of forum software over a blog is that there are many more choices available in terms of layout and design templates. PHPBB has been around for years and has had probably more than a million man hours pumped into it. vBulletin is a paid option that is excellent.

With a paid option, you have somebody to go to for support. I remember coding stuff in PHP3 and getting frustrated (because PHP is open source), you didn't have someone to turn to for help in developing any commercial applications. Then came along PHP4 and the 'register-globals' fiasco. Which is exactly what it was.

The clearest dividing line imo is perhaps the ease that a forum handles individual topics/privileges/users.

If you are to host it yourself, most use PHP/MySQL so you would need that available to you.

A blog (imo) is more likened to a diary. And is not as accessible regarding different topics. I don't read any blogs nowadays but there was one particular blog which I followed on a daily basis as the owner went through cancer of the oesophagus.

That blog is hosted by Google and so will remain online for probably the next 20 or 50 years. That wouldn't really be practical for a forum.

Either way, and whichever choice you make, expect to put some time aside to manage the spammers (lots of them), while you fine tune the choice you made.

HTH

 

[Richard S]

God I feel old, didn't understand any of that!

I was tempted to paraphrase Marjory Dawes from Little Britain and say "again, in English!" but didn't want to encourage some of the posters from the "new neighbours" thread

 

[Jacob]

Thanks for that Flynnwood
The clearest dividing line imo is perhaps the ease that a forum handles individual topics/privileges/users. - that's what struck me. Better for conversations. And the time issue - old threads can be brought back to the top and conversations go on over years with big intervals. Blogs fade away - old topics don't get found or brought back easily - a bit linear, like Facebook.

 

[JakeS]

The benefit of forum software over a blog is that there are many more choices available in terms of layout and design templates.

...

A blog (imo) is more likened to a diary. And is not as accessible regarding different topics.

I would disagree to a degree on these points - at least in the general case.

I doubt very much that there's much difference between the number of choices for layout and design templates between blog software and forum software; both types of software have a number of hugely popular examples, and some other more-general-purpose software which can fill in for either blog or forum which offers even more options. Certainly there are enough different layout and theme options available for blog software or for forum software that I doubt anyone will be able to honestly say "I've looked at all the options", let alone "and I didn't find anything I liked".

On the second point, it depends very heavily on how you want your topics to be accessible.

A blog - or the closely-related option of a generic CMS (content management system) - will generally be more open for adding indices of topics, for easily finding a particular article, or tags which can be applied to articles in a certain category so somebody can quickly find all the articles written on - say - the topic of sharpening. You have to actually put a little bit of work into constructing the index or menu of articles, so a lot of people don't do it, but it's easily possible.

A forum, on the other hand, tends to organise things by the most recent comments... so it's quick and easy to find the current hot topic and/or the most-recent posts, but if you want to find a discussion or an article that was written a year ago, even if you know specifically what it was about and just want to check a couple of details you probably have to resort to the (usually awful) search feature. Unless the site owner also figured that one article you need about the perils of adjusting the mouth of a particular make of block plane warranted being made into a sticky... and forums with more than a couple of stickies become near-impossible to browse.
(Of course, some forum owners will aggregate useful topics into a single index in a sticky. It's a little bit more work than the equivalent on a blog, but it also has another drawback - it's generally considered a good idea to set your forum up so search engines don't follow links from inside posts, because of the ease of spamming a forum... so that would mean that a search engine wouldn't be able to catalogue that index of useful links so easily.)


To me, this:

Better for conversations.

is the most delineating feature. If you want a site where everybody who visits is broadly equal and which encourages everyone to chip in and discuss something, then a forum is probably your answer. If you want a site where the site owner writes things and most other users simply come along to see what they have to say, then you want blog/CMS/etc. software.
Bear in mind that the blog does still allow conversation, and in a lot of ways encourages it by highlighting comments that have been made in response to particular articles, allowing users to get notifications when their comments are replied to and so on... the difference is that on a forum, the site owner is just another guy who opens topics, and on a blog the site owner is the guy who everyone visits the site to read the words of. And of course that it's generally harder to persuade people to sign up to and participate in yet another forum than it is to get them to read a blog!




The other thing to consider is whether you're willing to pay money to use a service to run this hypothetical site, whether you're willing to set it up yourself, and/or whether you want to use a free service offered by some big name. If you're hoping to use someone else's free service, that dramatically limits the choice and flexibility of the options, of course.

 

[Jacob]

By "design" I'm thinking of the structure, not the appearance. Although blogs have tidier visual designs they still all look the same somehow, so perhaps why bother?
A lot of blogs have not much index at all, not only can you not find, you also might not even know there is anything else there to look at.
On the other hand forums are very structured and adaptable with lots of built in features. Search works better on forums than blogs and you can also bookmark.
They are both CMSs - but then everything is one way or another!
Another option would be a plain text html page with just text/images/links perhaps a tiny bit of design as a header. Then construct ones own index and cross referrals. No place here for contributions except by copy/paste done by the site operator. Hmm there's an idea - a simple site with it's own forum as an add on? This forum has that structure (there's a front page which nobody looks at!) but it's nearly all forum otherwise.

 

[dp341]

If you want to have lots of flexibility, various options for organising and structuring the content whilst it being more article based than forum post based then actually there's plenty of capability for that in WordPress. Just because most people don't do it doesn't mean the options aren't there. Alternatively, I really like drupal for that kind of stuff. A great cms, very extendable, lots of community support, Moore flexibility than you'll ever need.

 

[bg]

maybe a grim reminder, but I see your pals over there certainly thought you should blog off, and a few here would encourage you too. I think a blog would be a significant contribution to those who need to learn to sharpen and pare, and, well go with the grain. Can't wait to read, all I've got are expensive mags penned by those pesky amateurs, and a diminishing number of forums who allow your pearls. Do be careful not to get banned here like our old friend mr grim was wont you.

 

[Jacob]

Very interesting BG.
So what brought you out of the woodwork after so long? 3 years isn't it?
Still reading the mags? I wouldn't bother if I were you, complete waste of money!

PS it's Brad Naylor isn't it - and I claim my free piece of MDF!

 

[bg]

Since you ask, yes I think it was about 3 years ago, on a thread with you and some of your pals that got mod deleted if I remember rightly. As this happens on quite a few threads you participate in I daresay it would not stick readily in your mind, and it was only the delete thing that brought back the recollection to me. I must be like a woodworm just poking up, it could be pupation time. Hey, the second post in 3 years (well now the 3rd to be pedantic) and all to a grim thread, I hope this does not make me a troll. No doubt as an expert in trollism you could advise me, but to be on the safe side I will converse no more especially as daylight approaches. I also believe it is customary for you to have the last word, and would not wish to deprive you. So a parting word from me, don’t you think that a Blog is rather yesterday, isn’t Facebook or Twitter more the thing? You could command a worldwide following. Maybe even a book, ‘The Grim World of Woodworking’ – all you want to know about handjobbies but were afraid to ask.

No BG is not Brad Naylor. Brad may have a suitable length of MDF to shove up your direction, I would not know. No stop – its morning - don’t open the curtains – oh shi

 

[Jacob]

:roll: Troll!! :lol:
Hello Bernard!