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Get Your Own Forum - First Month Free


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2018 Jan 29, 12:40pm   50,533 views  31 comments

by Patrick   ➕follow (55)   💰tip   ignore  

Get your own forum like this one. The first month is free, no credit card required, no risk. It will run under your own domain name, with https, with you as administrator-god. For revenue, you could place ads on it, sell swag, or ask for donations. Or maybe you just want to get your message out there and don't care about revenue.

Steps:
1. Register a domain name and tell the registrar to use ns1.digitalocean.com, ns2.digitalocean.com, and ns3.digitalocean.com as name servers. I prefer the registrar namecheap.com but any registrar will do. I am happy to help with the name server configuration.
2. Email p@patrick.net your new domain name.

I should be able to have your new forum up and running within an hour. https configuration may take a little longer.

If you like your forum and want to continue it past the first month, it will cost a flat $20 per month. Cancel any time, instant, no hassle.

Sorry about the legalese below, but it's necessary:

Terms of Service

Patrick runs a forum hosting service. New forums are created by Patrick on demand for you, the customer, and maintained for a monthly fee.

The service gives you, as administrator of your own forum, control over what is on your forum (you may delete anything users have entered, and set certain policies). However, you agree not to allow prohibited items (like spam, viruses, or serious threats of violence) appear on your forum.

If you find a patrick.net forum that you believe violates these terms of Service, please email p@patrick.net .

The following terms and conditions govern all use of your patrick.net forum:

Services are offered subject to your acceptance without modification of all of the terms and conditions contained herein. Changes to these terms and conditions may be published from time to time on this page.

You agree that Patrick may automatically upgrade the services at any time, and these terms will apply to any upgrades.

If you do not agree to all the terms of this agreement, then you may not access or use the service.

The service is not directed to children younger than 13, and access and use of the service is offered only to users 13 years of age or older. If you are under 13 years old, please do not register to use the service. Any person who registers as a user or provides their personal information represents that they are 13 years of age or older.

You will be solely responsible and liable for any activity that occurs on your forum. You are responsible for keeping your password secure.

You are responsible for maintaining the security of your account and forum, and you are fully responsible for all activities that occur under the account and any other actions taken in connection with the forum. You must immediately notify Patrick (at p@patrick.net ) of any unauthorized uses of your forum, your account, or any other breaches of security. Patrick will not be liable for any acts or omissions by you, including any damages of any kind incurred as a result of such acts or omissions.

You are entirely responsible for the content of, and any harm resulting from, content on your forum or your conduct. That is the case regardless of what form the content takes, which includes, but is not limited to text, photo, video, audio, or code. By using patrick.net, you represent and warrant that your content and conduct do not violate these terms.

Patrick retains the right to refuse or remove any content from your forum that, in Patrick's opinion, violates any policy or is in any way harmful or objectionable, as well as to terminate or deny access to and use of the service to any individual or entity for any reason. Patrick will have no obligation to provide a refund of any amounts previously paid.

You are responsible for resolving all support questions, comments, and complaints from your users. You must provide a contact email to be included in the footer of your forum, which will be for customers to contact you with questions or complaints.

Patrick offers optional but free https on all patrick.net sites, via Let's Encrypt. By signing up and using a custom domain, you authorize Patrick to act on the domain name registrant's behalf (by requesting the necessary certificates, for example) for the sole purpose of providing HTTPS on your site.

Advertisements. Patrick reserves the right to display advertisements on your forum, including a footer link to a page describing this service.

You may not use your forum for any unlawful purposes, or in furtherance of illegal activities. Patrick may terminate your forum if he determines (in his sole discretion) that your use is in any way harmful or objectionable.

You agree not to:
* Disclose the sensitive personal information of others.
* Send spam or bulk unsolicited messages.
* Interfere with, disrupt, or attack any service or network.
* Distribute material that is or enables malware, spyware, adware, or other malicious code.

You authorize Patrick to charge the monthly fee to your credit card or other payment method on file for you. Patrick offers refunds up to thirty (30) days after payment. Payment failures will result in the cancellation of your forum. Each patrick.net forum requires a separate subscription.

If you cancel your subscription to your forum, Patrick will queue your backed-up patrick.net content for deletion.

By signing up for a patrick.net forum you agree to pay Patrick in exchange for access to the forum. Applicable fees will be invoiced starting from the day your access is established and in advance of using such services. Patrick reserves the right to change the payment terms and fees by updating this page. Forum access can be canceled by you at any time by simply not paying, or by notifying Patrick of your wish to discontinue the forum. You agree that Patrick has up to 30 days to delete a forum.

Patrick has not reviewed, and cannot review, all of the material posted to your forum, and cannot therefore be responsible for that material's content, use or effects. By maintaining your forum, Patrick does not represent or imply that he endorses the material there posted, or that he believes such material to be accurate, useful, or non-harmful. You are responsible for taking precautions as necessary to protect yourself and your computer systems from viruses, worms, trojan horses, and other harmful or destructive content. Your forum may contain content that is offensive, indecent, or otherwise objectionable, as well as content containing technical inaccuracies, typographical mistakes, and other errors. Patrick disclaims any responsibility for any harm resulting from the use by visitors of your forum.

Third party services are not vetted, endorsed, or controlled by Patrick. Any use of a third party service is at your own risk, and Patrick shall not be responsible or liable to anyone for third party services. Your use is solely between you and the respective third party and will be governed by the third party's terms and policies. It is your responsibility to review the third party's terms and policies before using a third party service. Third party services may not work appropriately with your forum, and Patrick may not be able to provide support for issues caused by any third party services. In rare cases, Patrick may at his discretion, suspend, disable, or remove third party services from your forum.

If you believe that material located on or linked to by on of these forums violates your copyright, you are encouraged to notify first the forum owner via the "contact" link at the bottom of each page. Notify Patrick if the forum owner does not respond. Attempted abuse of the DMCA will be reported to authorities. Note specifically that a simple link to any other site on the internet is not a violation of the DMCA and will not be removed, even if you believe it is impacting your SEO rankings.

Patrick may terminate a visitor's access to and use of your forum if the visitor is determined to be a repeat infringer of the copyrights or other intellectual property rights.

This agreement does not transfer from Patrick to you any intellectual property, and all right, title, and interest in and to Patrick's intellectual property will remain solely with Patrick.

Patrick is constantly updating his services, and that means that he sometimes has to change the legal terms under which the services offered. If he makes changes that are material, he will let you know by posting on this page, or by sending you an email or other communication before the changes take effect. The notice will designate a reasonable period of time after which the new terms will take effect. If you disagree with the changes, then you should stop using the service. Your continued use of the services will be subject to the new terms.

Patrick may terminate your access to all or any part of the service at any time, with or without cause, with or without notice, effective immediately. If you wish to terminate this agreement you may simply discontinue paying for the services. All provisions of this agreement which by their nature should survive termination shall survive termination, including, without limitation, ownership provisions, warranty disclaimers, indemnity and limitations of liability.

The service is provided as is. Patrick hereby disclaims all warranties of any kind, express or implied, including, without limitation, the warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. Patrick makes no warranty that the services will be error free or that access thereto will be continuous or uninterrupted. You understand that you download from, or otherwise obtain content or services through, the service at your own discretion and risk.

Except to the extent applicable law provides otherwise, any access to or use of the service will be governed by the laws of the state of California, USA, and that the proper venue for any disputes arising out of or relating to any of the same will be the state and federal courts located in San Mateo County, California.

Any dispute arising under this agreement shall be finally settled in accordance with the Comprehensive Arbitration Rules of the Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Service, Inc. (JAMS) by three arbitrators appointed in accordance with such Rules. The arbitration shall take place in San Mateo County, California, in the English language and the arbitral decision may be enforced in any court. The prevailing party in any action or proceeding to enforce this agreement shall be entitled to costs and attorneys fees.

In no event will Patrick be liable with respect to any subject matter of this agreement under any contract, negligence, strict liability or other legal or equitable theory for: (i) any special, incidental or consequential damages; (ii) the cost of procurement for substitute products or services; (iii) for interruption of use or loss or corruption of data; or (iv) for any amounts that exceed the fees paid by you to Patrick under this agreement during the twelve (12) month period prior to the cause of action. Patrick shall have no liability for any failure or delay due to matters beyond his reasonable control.

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Patrick from and against any and all claims and expenses, including attorneys fees, arising out of your use of his service, including but not limited to your violation of this agreement.

This agreement constitutes the entire agreement between Patrick and you concerning the subject matter hereof, and they may only be modified by a written amendment signed by Patrick, or by the posting by Patrick of a revised version on this page.

If any part of this agreement is held invalid or unenforceable, that part will be construed to reflect the parties original intent, and the remaining portions will remain in full force and effect. These terms and conditions are jointly and severally enforcable. A waiver by either party of any term or condition of this agreement or any breach thereof, in any one instance, will not waive such term or condition or any subsequent breach thereof. You may assign your rights under this agreement to any party that consents to, and agrees to be bound by, its terms and conditions; Patrick may assign its rights under this agreement without condition. This agreement will be binding upon and will inure to the benefit of the parties, their successors and permitted assigns.

Comments 1 - 31 of 31        Search these comments

1   WookieMan   2018 Jan 29, 5:00pm  

This post seems to have drifted by the masses here since you posted earlier today. So I'll bump it.

My $0.02, $40/mo seems a bit steep for what's being offered. Not saying you don't bring the value on the back end with the actual site/forum structure, I just know I can get and/or do some cool stuff for just under $500 it costs for the year.

Sorry, I drive a hard bargain. My monthly internet is just a bit over $40/mo. I work from home using said internet. That monthly investment makes me substantially more. Basically, my forum will need to start out making me $20k/yr to even get my attention. And that's with me doing nothing as I'll be here posting and writing comments too long for people to read so they wet their pants about it.
2   anonymous   2018 Jan 29, 5:07pm  

Do you have an example website up of what you're talking about?
3   Patrick   2018 Jan 29, 5:08pm  

I think certain people and companies will not mind paying it, especially with such awesome tech support! :-)

anon_b26ff says
Do you have an example website up of what you're talking about?


Yes, here's one I just put up:

http://sftech.fun/
4   Patrick   2018 Jan 29, 5:54pm  

Does anyone know of a cheaper way to get a forum with:

* no technical work
* own domain name
* https

I did a cursory search and didn't find anything under $50/month.
5   WookieMan   2018 Jan 29, 6:00pm  

Jesus fuck, didn't realize this was an industry.

https://www.forums.net/pricing
My cursory search reveals that $40/mo is a solid price even though I sarcastically bitched about it. Not sure the demand, but you might have a little side income opportunity here besides keeping us degenerates in line.
6   Hircus   2018 Jan 29, 7:24pm  

A long time ago I had some vbulletin forums (the premier forum software back then, probably still).

I hosted my own, but I know there were plenty of outfits offering fully managed servers setup with vbulletin forums. And they had different tiers, some allowing your own domain name, automatic backups, ssl, etc... They were pretty cheap back then...and so I'd be surprised if the price has went up in the past 15ish years.

The vbulletin license wasn't cheap (not sure about now), so I bet if you use one of the free forum software offerings, you could get the monthly price down even further.
7   Patrick   2018 Jan 29, 7:28pm  

goat says
if you use one of the free forum software offerings, you could get the monthly price down even further.


I wrote the forum software myself. Free to me!

The main thing is to not get killed by support time/cost. That's what the $40/month is really paying for.
8   MrMagic   2018 Jan 30, 8:40am  

@Patrick

The "Start New Thread" button is missing from my home page.

Is this a bug?
9   Patrick   2018 Jan 30, 8:43am  

Not a bug, I just reduced your permissions for a while because of all the personal attacks. I set it back to normal now.
10   anonymous   2018 Jan 30, 11:15am  

It’s not a bug, it’s a feature

;) #MAGA
11   anonymous   2018 Jan 31, 8:59am  

@Patrick something is broken again, my ‘personal’ button went missing
12   anonymous   2018 Jan 31, 9:20am  

@Patrick now my posts aren’t showing up at all. They seem to vanish into the ether after i post um
13   Goran_K   2018 Jan 31, 9:21am  

errc says
@Patrick now my posts aren’t showing up at all. They seem to vanish into the ether after i post um


Probably having your post go through moderation due to personal attacks.
14   Patrick   2018 Jan 31, 9:23am  

It's possible that one of the moderators deleted a comment.

Let me look into the personal button issue.
15   Patrick   2018 Jan 31, 9:44am  

errc says
Patrick something is broken again, my ‘personal’ button went missing


@errc Try now.
16   anonymous   2018 Jan 31, 3:52pm  

Goran_K says
errc says
@Patrick now my posts aren’t showing up at all. They seem to vanish into the ether after i post um


Probably having your post go through moderation due to personal attacks.


17   WookieMan   2018 Jan 31, 4:14pm  

Patrick says
It's possible that one of the moderators deleted a comment.

Not me. I'm 99% sure I haven't deleted anything in moderation. I don't have a record I can check back on, but there may have been one anon comment that was bad and I deleted, but I don't think it's more then one if any at all.

Otherwise I just approve the easy/logical non-personal attack ones. Anything borderline that I'm not sure of, I leave in moderation for others. My idea of what constitutes an insult or personal attack is rather harsh. As in I'd approve probably close to 98% of what is in moderation.

I actually approved one that I knew was a personal attack on me even though they generalized it by saying mods or something along those lines. @Patrick - that actually is a slight flaw in the moderation system. If I ignore someone, I shouldn't be able to moderate their comments. Right? Integrity is kind of lost if you ask me. I shouldn't be able to moderate people I ignore. Doesn't seem fair honestly.
18   Patrick   2018 Jan 31, 4:21pm  

Huh, don't know about that one. If you're ignoring them, maybe it's because they are so difficult to deal with and actually making personal attacks.
19   anonymous   2018 Feb 1, 6:50am  

@Patrick now my posts aren’t going through. I submit a few posts then back to the homepage, sorted by active, then I scroll down to the thread and it’s still buried saying last comment 8 hours ago.

What gives? This is the second time this has happened, yet it doesn’t seem to happen to anyone else. Am I being singled out and censored? That would be pretty fucked up
20   Y   2018 Feb 1, 7:38am  

Groundhogs day??
errc says
his is the second time this has happened, yet it doesn’t seem to happen to anyone else
21   anonymous   2018 Feb 1, 7:58am  

Patrick says
errc says
Patrick something is broken again, my ‘personal’ button went missing


@errc Try now.


Still not working @Patrick

22   Patrick   2018 Feb 1, 8:45am  

@errc OK, try again, this time it really really will work.

Problem was, when a moderator deletes enough of a user's comments, it also bumps down the user's permissions. I forgot I had added that.
23   Patrick   2018 Feb 1, 8:46am  

BTW, thanks for the screenshot! I have to say patrick.net looks OK on your phone.
24   anonymous   2018 Feb 1, 8:49am  

errc says
What gives? This is the second time this has happened, yet it doesn’t seem to happen to anyone else. Am I being singled out and censored?


Goran_K says
Probably having your post go through moderation due to personal attacks.
25   anonymous   2018 Feb 1, 8:52am  

Patrick says
@errc OK, try again, this time it really really will work.

Problem was, when a moderator deletes enough of a user's comments, it also bumps down the user's permissions. I forgot I had added that.


Yup i see the personal button is back, thanks.

Is that why my other posts keep going missing, because a mod is deleting them? Not even the specialist of snowflake could convince themselves that they’re personal attacks, unless the emotional bond with Daddy Trump is so strong that legit criticism of Trump is triggering a mod who is deleting my posts
26   anonymous   2018 Feb 1, 8:54am  

Patrick says
BTW, thanks for the screenshot! I have to say patrick.net looks OK on your phone.


Np. I prefer the mobile edition to the desktop, personally.

My only gripe is that it’s been hard to post images, although lately it’s working better.

Nice work
27   Patrick   2018 Feb 1, 9:00am  

What goes wrong when you try to post an image from mobile? Work on my iphone, but I don't have the resources to test on many other phones.
28   WookieMan   2018 Feb 1, 10:56am  

@Patrick - I don't think the number of posts are being added correctly when you look up a user. I looked myself up and it said I only had 4 posts, which I have more than that. Screen shot included here. When I click through you can see all my posts (clicking the number 4), just doesn't appear to be adding correctly or at all on the user summary screen if that makes sense. Minor issue.

While 82% of the reason I'm here is to get likes on my comments because it keeps my ego inflated. I didn't realize I had so many dislikes. Any chance there would be a way to check them out? The dislikes. So I can let the people that hate me know I mean no ill will towards them?

I suppose it could flame up some personal attacks, so I understand the logic behind not allowing people to see who disliked a comment. I would just then ask why have it at all then? Seems like people might think X user disliked something and go after them when it could be someone else completely different.

And if you're going to keep it, but not allow people to see who dislikes it, that's fine. But you should create some sort of user score metric so we can see who the better users are. Content creation (new posts) could be one part of it. Like and dislikes another part. The user themselves liking or disliking stuff of the other users or marking something personal. I don't know the best formula for this, but would be interesting if you could come up with something that would point out the best, most quality posters/users.

This of course will cause some problems with people just clicking like or dislike to lower another users rating. You would just need to figure out the formula to balance that. For every like a user receives, they loose it if they dislike something else. Eye for an eye. Or mark something personal that gets passed by moderation and you lose 5 or 10 likes on your other stuff. All this adds up in the formula somehow to a score of 100 being the best and 0 being the worst.

I know it's ultimately a popularity contest if you're grading people in a sense this way. So there is a risk the content and discourse takes a turn because people are shooting to "look" good score wise. There could be a small chance, a very tiny chance, it might help auto-moderate the personal attacks out if people are thinking about their score.

Obviously from this thread you'd like to monetize this beast. I have no idea if this suggestion is something that helps that. I just really need my posts to be fucking accurately reflected on my user summary though.

29   Patrick   2018 Feb 1, 3:09pm  

WookieMan says
Patrick - I don't think the number of posts are being added correctly when you look up a user. I looked myself up and it said I only had 4 posts, which I have more than that. Screen shot included here. When I click through you can see all my posts (clicking the number 4), just doesn't appear to be adding correctly or at all on the user summary screen if that makes sense. Minor issue.


@WookieMan you are right! I was failing to update post counts. Fixed now: https://github.com/killelea/node.patrick.net/commit/8dcb0557416cf1869efd543893490667b7bc5cdd
30   Patrick   2018 Feb 1, 3:16pm  

WookieMan says
I suppose it could flame up some personal attacks, so I understand the logic behind not allowing people to see who disliked a comment. I would just then ask why have it at all then?


I really don't want to open up names on dislikes because it would ignite a lot of flame wars. But I think it does have a purpose or two. It gives comment/post authors some additional feedback (someone doesn't like it) and it gives frustrated users a way to vent without personally attacking another user. Also, I was always a bit annoyed that Facebook didn't have a "dislike" button (back when I used to use Facebook).

WookieMan says
you should create some sort of user score metric so we can see who the better users are.


That's kind of the idea behind being able to sort the user list at https://patrick.net/users You can sort by various measures. Maybe I should have a "sort by like/dislike ratio"?

WookieMan says
Obviously from this thread you'd like to monetize this beast. I have no idea if this suggestion is something that helps that.


Yes, would be nice. I'm grateful for your suggestions and your help in moderating.
31   WookieMan   2018 Feb 1, 6:53pm  

rando says

That's kind of the idea behind being able to sort the user list at https://patrick.net/users You can sort by various measures. Maybe I should have a "sort by like/dislike ratio"?


Let me soak this up some more now that I've been thinking tonight. I have ideas but need to hash them out some more in my brain and on paper. I may email you privately with some of these ideas. And I'll say it here, if they're shitty ideas, tell me. I don't have feelings to hurt.

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