Chapter-Specific Forum?

[vancinad]

Hi all! I'd like to set up a chapter-specific forum for my chapter, EAA 260. We have a Facebook presence, but many of our members do not want to use FB. We have a domain name and can host our own web site if needed.

It does not appear that EAA provides anything for this, so I'm looking for options. phpBB is "old reliable", and I could stand up an installation of that. Just wondering what others are using.

[rv8bldr]

At EAA 245 we have a Facebook page, a web site, and we also set up a Google Group. The Google Group is actually pretty well used as it is all email communications; you don't need to log into any other service, just your email account. Not as flashy as using Facebook or a forums site like this EAA Forums , but it is functional and if you know how to use email you are good to go.

Whenever someone joins our chapter they are automatically signed up for the Google Group unless they check the "Don't Sign Me Up" box on the membership form.

[The Boss]

It does not appear that EAA provides anything for this, so I'm looking for options. phpBB is "old reliable", and I could stand up an installation of that. Just wondering what others are using.

I would definitely go phpBB. I was using it since 2006...

[Aviatrexx]

'Way back before the turn of the century, I set up a Mailman list-server for our chapter. The advantages were that is was free, lightweight, easy to use, and easy to manage. It was email-driven but there were many options for delivery from instantaneous to monthly digest only. The disadvantages were that it predated the widespread desire to post photos; you could do it, but there came to be issues with email attachments. Mailman's only recourse was to detach the binary component, sequester it in its own storage, and replace it with a safe link to the image. The only web-based access was to view the digest of collected correspondence.

A year ago we decided Mailman was a technological step behind and converted to Groups.io. It had many more features, including access via a web browser (like this forum) as well as email, simple and secure handling of attachments, calendars, chatrooms, photo albums, databases, polls, wikis, and the ability to create subgroups. Group management is only slightly more complicated than a Mailman list, primarily because of all the additional capability. Keep your group simple and there's fairly little effort required.

You can set up a Basic group (100 members) for free, but it lacks many of the special features. There's more than enough functionality to let you determine if it would work for your Chapter. We liked it so much that we went for the next level (everything you are ever likely to want, unless you are a business) for $20/month. It even has the ability to integrate RSS feeds, although we haven't felt the need for that yet.

It's well worth a free test flight for as long as you want.