Gauging interest - Big boards but not big boards
 

Unfortunately for the concious me the sub concious me has been thinking again, and it has come up with an idea that it has passed onto the concious me and who I am to ignore me :)

I am thinking about creating a big-boards.com type site/repository but for any forum regardless of size. In essence a forum administrator/owner would submit their forum (regardless of software) for inclusion in the lists.

Once included site users can then view stats, for example:

• Most members
• Most threads
• Most posts
• Latest additions
• Top movers

Stats would be refreshed by periodically querying the site for the information (for supported forums (i.e. vbulletin, phpbb, ipb, smf etc), so as part of the signup process it would be necessary to put a small file on the server. This file would also serve to verify that the person signing up actually owns the site (like Google webmaster tools)

In addition to this forums will be categorised (like dmoz) and can also be keyword tagged (only by the owner). This means that that others can use these tools to find forums they are interested in.

It would also be possible for site users to find "similar sites" by either tags or stats, i.e. show me all sites that have more or less the same members/posts/threads/subjects as me.

And finally there would be a forum behind it all where members can exchange forum administration hints and tips.

So the question, if this existed would you use it? If not why not? What else could it have? Of what I have described what shouldn't it have.

One last thing, there will be no payments to get your site listed.

hmmmm. I once saw this in action with phpbb. I too had a file on my server that ran the queries and linked me to the list. I was removed from the list when I removed my file.

I liked seeing the lists as I was always near the top. LOL

If you add some private webmaster forums, I'd give it a go. The internet is SERIOUSLY lacking PRIVATE webmaster forums. I've even thought of starting my own PRIVATE forum, I just lack the time. LOL

Private forums, that's a good point - take the following thread on here for example:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=203861

This is publicly visible so in theory a member of the board in question could find the post, and as lasto pointed out in the thread the poster could lose respect from his members.

However we were all knew to this at some point, christ knows I have posted rants here on vb.org. So a private forum would be created for only those that are verified site owners.

Placing a file on your server?
That's such a turn off.
There are already tens of big-boards.com wannabes that get their stats directly from the URI, without any file uploads.

The phpbb one I used was 3 years ago. Things have come a long way in 3 years. LOL

Great thred Mr.

I would use this for my non business-fun forums.

Would there be a security issue if the board pulled in info from other boards? I have no idea. Probably a stupid question.

Depends on how serious the board owner is.

The problem with that is sites that are running custom layouts, if it every site had a fixed layout that displayed the stats then it would be trivial to pull in the stats page and parse it. However most site do run custom layouts and it would be unfeasible to write a parser for every one.

^ http://www.thebiggestboards.com/ they do somehow retrieve the info without placing files.

systems taking stats by URI are stupid... just on vb.org, there is 3 versions of a hack to make false stats...

a very good example of false stats is christianforums.com ... is 3rd on the list of Big-Boards.com ... it have about 10 millions post and 1 million threads that are faked in the index file... no need to be a genious to understand what it does... would be 8th or 10th without these stats... foolishly, the company who bought it related their info on these stats...
(and for the ones who ask "how do he know..." ... i played with the cables there!)

the problem with all these topsites is that they are completely useless... google do the best job possible by ranking your site based on keywords and visits... number of members is pointless if you just have an OffTopic forum; they register, post one day and never visit again... same for content, you can have an engine like Ico-Content and fool everybody because the engine create new users and new threads/replies based on answers.yahoo.com ... real interaction... people are fooled by that --- i can tell, i'm the one releasing the engine...

it's easy to fool any stats...