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| Hey some pre sales questions help please | Rate Topic |
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| Posted: Mon Jul 11th, 2011 04:42 pm |
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1st Post |
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Jim 127.0.0.1 
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Hi everyone, Not often I ask for silly help but there is a future customer that I simply can't get him to come and post in the pre sales. I am swamped right now at the day job, some of you know how much catching up I had to do this weekend, and I got rear ended by a huge ford E350 van this morning on the highway on the way to the dreadful day job. Yes it was the Data 1 mobile. Anyhow if a bunch of you can jump in and put your take on these issues perhaps I can get him to come read and he would see how helpful the members of our community are. Then he might join and could get help any time of the day from across the globe. The message>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> ____________________________________________ Hi Jim, Here's my list of questions, some of which I e-mailed you the last week. As soon as I can get satisfactory answers, I'll start setting up the forum. I was hoping you could get back to me last Thursday but this week will have to do. Do all forum members get an e-mail with the first message of a new thread, and does the message contain the content or do they have to go to the forum to read it? Then if they want to continue receiving messages do they have to go to the forum to subscribe to the thread to get emails containing the content of all subsequent messages posted to that thread? As a moderator, can I get all emails containing the content of every post even if I'm not subscribed? Is there space at the top, bottom, and left and right borders for Google ads and sponsor banners on all pages? By setting up a group for all members that pay a yearly fee, can I restrict that only those members can start threads in a forum that offers things for sale, but any forum member can reply to the thread? I have hosting questions and your web site isn't clear about the combination of purchasing the forum and having you host it. Do you set it up for me? I'm currently using Yahoo Groups for my forum, which is fairly active at over 7500 members and an average of about 25 - 30 posts a day. Because it's an e-mail forum, moving to a more professional forum will cause a percentage to drop out, but the advantages where I can sell targeted banners and have Google ads on each page will finally allow me to generate an income from the forum. That's why I want to be sure it can do the things that are most important. How is the forum moderated for new members? Can everyone's first post be moderated before they are allowed to participate? That's how I have my Yahoo Group set up as it totally eliminates spam. Requiring members to be approved before signing up would work if they were to answer a series of specific questions before being approved. Thanks
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| Posted: Mon Jul 11th, 2011 05:31 pm |
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2nd Post |
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martin_wynne Licence Holder 
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You wrote:Do all forum members get an e-mail with the first message of a new thread, and does the message contain the content or do they have to go to the forum to read it? Hi, I created my UltraBB board 4 years ago specifically as a replacement for a Yahoo group. I chose UltraBB because it allows exactly what you are asking -- you can have the entire content of the forum transmitted to members as email, as it is posted. This feature is called Watched Forums. You can also set up a mechanism where all content is transmitted to the old Yahoo group and on as emails to existing members. This not only provides continuity for those members who are resistant to change, it also provides a backup archive of your entire forum, which can be read in chronological order, and provides an alternative means of searching the content. So your members can choose -- receive emailed content direct from the forum, or receive it via the Yahoo group. This provides some resilience where an ISP is being silly about blocking some sites. See what I mean on my Yahoo group -- http://groups.yahoo.com/group/templot/ UltraBB Watched Forums is brilliant! Unfortunately Jim recently threw a potential spanner (wrench) in the works by limiting emails on shared hosting to 2000 emails per hour. On a busy board with thousands of members that could kill this feature stone dead. I asked Jim to clarify what this means for the Watched Forums feature but so far he hasn't replied. I'm sure he will -- the Data 1 hosting service is the best there is, but Jim has been very busy recently and tied up with family illness. If you ask here you will get lots of answers and friendly help from other UltraBB users. regards, Martin.
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| Posted: Mon Jul 11th, 2011 06:27 pm |
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3rd Post |
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Marty Helpy Helper 
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Do all forum members get an e-mail with the first message of a new thread, and does the message contain the content or do they have to go to the forum to read it? These questions I do not have the answer for as I have not used this area of the software in a while, so I don't remember how it works specifically. I turned off outbound emails on my Board because I want people coming to my site for page views. Is there space at the top, bottom, and left and right borders for Google ads and sponsor banners on all pages? Yes there is. The "Layout" is whatever you want it to be. You can install Google Adsense Script into your Templates. By setting up a group for all members that pay a yearly fee, can I restrict that only those members can start threads in a forum that offers things for sale, but any forum member can reply to the thread? Yes. The ability to "Start New Posts" and "Reply to Others Posts" are 2 separate permissions. I have hosting questions and your web site isn't clear about the combination of purchasing the forum and having you host it. Do you set it up for me? The forum software is easy to set up, but Jim will set it up for you either way if need help. There are lots of combinations of Hosting and Software... so I would need to know the specifics of what you are looking for to answer this better. How is the forum moderated for new members? Can everyone's first post be moderated before they are allowed to participate? This is entirely up to you. You cannot "prevent" a post from appearing before looking at it, but you can restrict their ability to post until you "Authorize" them to post. Unfortunately Jim recently threw a potential spanner (wrench) in the works by limiting emails on shared hosting to 2000 emails per hour. On a busy board with thousands of members that could kill this feature stone dead. This isn't new, and Jim's limitation is actually more liberal than most hosts. The reason places like Yahoo groups can get away with it is because they are their own host and know what they are sending out so they eliminate the cap.
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13th, 2011 11:31 am |
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4th Post |
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LarryBerman License Holder 
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Hi everyone and thanks for answering. I do have a large Yahoo Groups forum at 7,500 members and though I expect to loose a large percentage in transition, I can grow the forum to well over 10,000 over time. Am I to understand that only 2,000 emails will be sent out per hour to announce the start of a new thread? And does that mean if there are 10,000 members, it will take five hours before everyone is notified, or only the first 2,000 people will? When I asked about setting up a group to be able to start a new thread, that would be for a specific forum and everyone could start a new thread on any forum but the one the group could post to. For example, I want to set up forum for advertising things for sale but want to restrict starting a thread to only people who have paid a small yearly fee. Everyone could reply to that restricted forum. I apologize for wanting a one on one conversation to find out if my list of required features is possible but I'm extremely busy and have a limited amount of free time to research this. I've been aware of this thread for a few days but only now have found the time to post. Is there no way to subscribe to this thread to be notified of other replies? That's one of the features I'm looking for. Thanks again to everyone who answered. Larry Berman http://BermanGraphics.com Last edited on Wed Jul 13th, 2011 01:46 pm by LarryBerman |
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13th, 2011 01:33 pm |
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5th Post |
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Marty Helpy Helper
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Oops you probably don't want to put your phone number in there! :-) I would edit that out.
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13th, 2011 01:49 pm |
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6th Post |
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Marty Helpy Helper
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I do have a large Yahoo Groups forum at 7,500 members and though I expect to loose a large percentage in transition, I can grow the forum to well over 10,000 over time. Am I to understand that only 2,000 emails will be sent out per hour to announce the start of a new thread? And does that mean if there are 10,000 members, it will take five hours before everyone is notified, or only the first 2,000 people will? The limitation is set by hosts to prevent their servers from becoming "Spam" machines. With Data 1 Systems hosting it is limited to 2,000 per an hour, which is about 10x what most hosts allow per hour, and double the max per DAY for most hosts. Jim raised that limit because of the context of the sites he hosts are Forums and thus produce a lot of mail by design. The only reason "Yahoo Groups" gets away with it is because they are "self hosted" and can basically unlimit their own software to endless limits. You can set forum permissions by user group. So basically you would limit that forums "new Post" ability to a specific group of people. This would prevent others from starting a NEW post. The ability to "reply to other people posts" is a separate permission. So you could allow others to reply by using that. Yes there is. When you replied to this message there was a check box for "Notify me by email when replies are posted to this topic" If you have that checked you will get an email for replies.
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13th, 2011 02:17 pm |
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7th Post |
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martin_wynne Licence Holder
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Marty wrote:Yes there is. When you replied to this message there was a check box for "Notify me by email when replies are posted to this topic" Hi Larry, Even if you didn't tick that box, or post in the topic, you can get an email "notification" of every new reply by clicking the Watch Topic button at the bottom of the page. A "notification" simply tells you that there was a new post and who made it. If you want the actual content included in the emails, go to your Watched Forums settings in your My Account area: http://ultrabb.net/forum/my_account.php?watched_forums=1 Make your settings to receive emails from this "UltraBB Pre-sales" forum. Note that if you do both of the above things, you will receive 2 emails for replies to the watched topic. The 2000 emails an hour limit is extremely worrying. I'm still waiting for Jim to respond on this. In effect it breaks an essential feature of the UltraBB board software (Watched Forums). I can understand the spam limit for general hosting, but where the hosting is being used to host Data 1's own software, their must surely be a way of detecting that the email is from an UltraBB board. It also makes it impossible to use the shared hosting for newslettters and similar mailing lists such as Mailman, which is a genuine and legitimate application for many users: http://www.gnu.org/s/mailman/ regards, Martin.
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13th, 2011 02:30 pm |
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8th Post |
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LarryBerman License Holder
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Thanks Martin and Marty. My "groups" question is still up in the air. Can I assign a person to a group and enable only them to post to a specific (sub) forum? I want to set up a for sale forum and only let people who have paid a fee be able to start a thread, but have anyone be able to reply. And have everyone be able to start threads in all the other sub forums except for the for sale forum? Larry Berman http://BermanGraphics.com Last edited on Wed Jul 13th, 2011 02:31 pm by LarryBerman |
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13th, 2011 02:37 pm |
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9th Post |
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Marty Helpy Helper
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LarryBerman wrote:Thanks Martin and Marty. Yes you can.
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13th, 2011 02:57 pm |
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10th Post |
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martin_wynne Licence Holder
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LarryBerman wrote: My "groups" question is still up in the air. Can I assign a person to a group and enable only them to post to a specific (sub) forum? I want to set up a for sale forum and only let people who have paid a fee be able to start a thread, but have anyone be able to reply. And have everyone be able to start threads in all the other sub forums except for the for sale forum? Hi Larry, Yes -- there are separate permission settings for starting a topic, replying to a topic, viewing a topic. Note that there are some ongoing issues with "For Sale" forums. At present there is no way for the seller to change the topic title to show that an item has been sold. Only moderators can do that. An intending purchaser must read the topic to find out if the item is still for sale. I provided a mod to allow users easily to add PayPal payment buttons in their posts -- see Dean's "For Sale" site for example, using UltraBB, at: http://www.muscatine4sale.com/ regards, Martin.
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13th, 2011 03:10 pm |
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11th Post |
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LarryBerman License Holder
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Thanks, the permission for a group question has been answered. I'm currently getting e-mail notification of replies once signed up for it. If there are 2001 members, do only 2000 get immediate notification and/or does member 2001 not get notified or does it go out the second hour. That's for new threads and replies. Larry Berman http://BermanGraphics.com
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13th, 2011 03:17 pm |
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12th Post |
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martin_wynne Licence Holder
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LarryBerman wrote:I'm currently getting e-mail notification of replies once signed up for it. If there are 2001 members, do only 2000 get immediate notification and/or does member 2001 not get notified or does it go out the second hour. That's for new threads and replies. Hi Larry, That's unclear at present. Over to Jim.  Note that the 2000 limit is only for shared hosting. With 7000+ members you may be ready for a dedicated server, depending on your board activity level. No limit on dedicated servers, Jim? What's the entry price for changing to a dedicated server? regards, Martin.
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13th, 2011 10:34 pm |
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13th Post |
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Jim 127.0.0.1
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I'm still waiting on you to order your dedicated server Martin As it turns out yes the messages are held in the exim queue until they are released. I'm currently testing this for another large customer... rather a customer with a large site to see how the server reacts to the increased load. I can assure you that the current mass e-mail mechanism in UltraBB will definitely increase the server load, I have seen it with my own eyes. I will stand behind my limitations for shared servers as I feel it is more than fair. Please compare to other hosts and if they allow more I bet I can find shortcomings in other parts of that particular package.
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13th, 2011 10:49 pm |
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14th Post |
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martin_wynne Licence Holder
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Jim wrote: I'm still waiting on you to order your dedicated server Martin Hi Jim, I'm still waiting for you to tell me a price for an entry-level dedicated server. I will stand behind my limitations for shared servers as I feel it is more than fair. Please compare to other hosts and if they allow more I bet I can find shortcomings in other parts of that particular package. But other hosts aren't supplying their own software which needs the email output. With this limit you are breaking your own software -- the UltraBB Watched Forums feature becomes unusable on a busy board with more than a few hundred members. I feel that if you offer to host your own software, the hosting should support all the features of the software. Not necessarily at the lowest cost competitive hosting -- I'm happy to pay extra to make sure that my board works the way my members want. But the option should be there. regards, Martin.
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13th, 2011 11:11 pm |
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15th Post |
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LarryBerman License Holder
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I'm ready to sign up. I have the intermediate shared hosting, forum software and photo gallery in my shopping cart, all set for an annual payment. Is there anything else that I need to do? Thanks, Larry Berman http://BermanGraphics.com
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13th, 2011 11:19 pm |
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16th Post |
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Marty Helpy Helper
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Sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride!
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13th, 2011 11:26 pm |
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17th Post |
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Jim 127.0.0.1
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And we are not going to disappear after the sale. Haven't yet.
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13th, 2011 11:29 pm |
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18th Post |
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LarryBerman License Holder
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Is there a place to enter a credit card, or am I locked into using PayPal? Larry
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| Posted: Thu Jul 14th, 2011 03:11 am |
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19th Post |
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Jim 127.0.0.1
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Paypal processes credit cards for us without having a paypal account. We pay extra for this feature and nobody has used it that I know of. We enabled 2checkout as a gateway and it costs us a bundle, but for some reason people just love to use it! You should be able to use either gateway.
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