Adding a Message Board?

[OpheliaSpeaks]

Hey everyone,
I am the website manager for WNY Shiba Rescue. One of the ladies in the rescue suggested adding a message board with different topics so fosters and adoptive families can post about their experiences with the dogs and offer tips/tricks etc.
I think this is a great idea, but what kinds of things would I need to include to waive WNY Shiba Rescue from any liability? People can post crazy things sometimes! I'm guessing I'd need someone (probably me) to moderate the postings. Do I need to include a legal statement?
I don't want someone to go on there and say "Feed your dog chocolate, it'll make their coat shiny" or something dumb like that and then have us responsible for people's stupidity!
What do you all think?

[skipper]

Well, adding a message board is easy, I run about 7 of them myself, my largest is avBulletin and has over 60,000 members..... and yes, it gets to be a pain when it gets that large, with over 10 super moderators to handle the crap people post daily...

vBulletin costs around $175 for a single license.... pgpBB is free - but would not be a great board if you ever grew over 10,000 members (it lacks many features that are integral ni vB)

I'm just throwing this out there, but you may be best to secure a new domain name, and post the board on that new site, instead of integrating it on your site... then put a redirect to the board.....a legal disclaimer is easy to come by and can be made by googling other disclaimers and piecing them together to suit your needs... With the link to the new site and forum and you can put a disclaimer that people have to "click" before entering the forums agreeing to, and understanding that the forum is not affiliated with the site, but is merely a support forum for people to talk and have discussions in...

[Bright-Eyed-TJ]

Wow that's excellent advice. I realize this thread is a month old since the last post, but this is great info to know.

I didn't realize you can purchase a license?

If you use PhpBB, could there be problems later with a large growing visitors?

[traciedowell]

We have our own message board and we use phpBB. So far we have 56 registered users so it's still small. I have noticed that people don't really talk much in our forum and someone recently pointed out to me that maybe people would rather just sign video comments. We are working on a way to make that possible. I am going to start a new thread on that.

To answer the question, phpBB is a great solution that is easy to install and works very well. We manage ours using the admin panel and you can customize the appearance to match your website.

[VamPyroX]

Originally Posted by traciedowell

We have our own message board and we use phpBB. So far we have 56 registered users so it's still small. I have noticed that people don't really talk much in our forum and someone recently pointed out to me that maybe people would rather just sign video comments. We are working on a way to make that possible. I am going to start a new thread on that.

To answer the question, phpBB is a great solution that is easy to install and works very well. We manage ours using the admin panel and you can customize the appearance to match your website.

I find that hard to believe that people would rather take the extra time out of their hands just to set up the computer, start the webcam program, record their comments, stop the recording, save the file, and upload it online.

[Bright-Eyed-TJ]

Tracy, I agree with above post.
Perhaps set up an incentive for forum posters. Say something like "Whoever gives the most helpful responses by this date, will win $100." Or "we will cover two (or three) of your next monthly 'fees" something like that!

Just to get your wheels turnin'