Forums.net suggestion

[Former Member]

Forum URL: alcryst.net

So, forums.net is kinda kicking my butt. The pageview projection is already really high (or it was before it became "today") and I've already used bout 1/10th of my allotted space in only a single day. If you can't tell, I'm worried. I really would prefer to not move forum hosts, as I've refused to do so for ten years and do not like giving in that easily. besides, I've spent 13 months on THIS site and changing it is not ideal. So I am attempting to come up with any workable/feasible solution for forums.net to be more affordable for me.

So I have a few suggestions. Please don't just discount them, I'm honestly attempting to figure out my situation as best I can. Any help is appreciated, admin or non. Or advice in general =)

1) Would there be a way for guests to be able to see only the homepage? I know I can do Must Login but I dislike that because it shuns new members. I could make it so the boards are not accessible to guests but then they'd still be clicking on them and getting the "you don't have permission to see this board" message and that still takes up the pageview. So I'm wondering if there would be a way to simply make them not clickable, or maybe a pop up instead of a page redirect that causes a pageview. This is just an idea, kind of spitballing, cuz I've spent about four hours now trying to figure out how I'm gonna be doing this and at this point I'm just throwing whatever comes to me out there. xD

2) Is there any way to limit how many pageviews people can get? I'm thinking maybe a way to prevent rapid refreshing or rapid page changing, etc. I doubt it's possible but I figured I'd ask. Forum users are notorious for just getting bored and refreshing to see if anything is new or flipping around pages in boredom and that's really what's gonna kill the pageviews, besides just the guests and bots that are eating up my pageviews. I went through 100 in 5 minutes alone. x.x

I've been trying to find an advertisement service that will let me use them despite "adult content" buuut I'm having on clue. Adsense doesn't allow it and all the other ones pretty much seem like a scam or go over my head. Does anyone reading this have any suggestions on this front? I can take this part here to general talk if necessary. I'm slightly desperate so if I did this wrong, please just let me know, thank you =)

[Baller95]

The page views thing is what killed it for me - support.proboards.com/post/5822504/thread

I wish it somehow worked like how the ad-free worked. Another solution would be something like this - support.proboards.com/thread/509172/forum-views-counted

[Former Member]

While those would be ideal for us consumers, I don't think that would work out well for Proboards as a business, and I'm not looking to hurt them, just perhaps find a way to make things easier on myself while ensuring they get all they are due pageview-wise, if that makes sense. A way to generate some revenue from ads to help cut costs, a way to limit pageviews a bit, a way to make it so guests and bots aren't eating my pageviews while also not shutting them out entirely, etc. It may have no solution, but I'm someone who likes to double-check in case there by some miracle is

[Bennett 🚀]

Thing is, they're wanting you to make enough money off of ad revenue to be able to pay the massive amount of pageviews that a forum can go through in a month. That's all they're counting on. I agree that unfortunately for people who don't have a business's budget for owning a forum through this service only can hope to scrape by if they are to use the paid service.

[RedBassett]

I've flagged it as a feature suggestion for tomorrow

[VS Admin]

Apr 22, 2014 18:00:58 GMT -8 ₪» ⅀ ƪ Ƒ «₪ said:

Forum URL: alcryst.net

So, forums.net is kinda kicking my butt. The pageview projection is already really high (or it was before it became "today") and I've already used bout 1/10th of my allotted space in only a single day. If you can't tell, I'm worried. I really would prefer to not move forum hosts, as I've refused to do so for ten years and do not like giving in that easily. besides, I've spent 13 months on THIS site and changing it is not ideal. So I am attempting to come up with any workable/feasible solution for forums.net to be more affordable for me.

So I have a few suggestions. Please don't just discount them, I'm honestly attempting to figure out my situation as best I can. Any help is appreciated, admin or non. Or advice in general =)

1) Would there be a way for guests to be able to see only the homepage? I know I can do Must Login but I dislike that because it shuns new members. I could make it so the boards are not accessible to guests but then they'd still be clicking on them and getting the "you don't have permission to see this board" message and that still takes up the pageview. So I'm wondering if there would be a way to simply make them not clickable, or maybe a pop up instead of a page redirect that causes a pageview. This is just an idea, kind of spitballing, cuz I've spent about four hours now trying to figure out how I'm gonna be doing this and at this point I'm just throwing whatever comes to me out there. xD

2) Is there any way to limit how many pageviews people can get? I'm thinking maybe a way to prevent rapid refreshing or rapid page changing, etc. I doubt it's possible but I figured I'd ask. Forum users are notorious for just getting bored and refreshing to see if anything is new or flipping around pages in boredom and that's really what's gonna kill the pageviews, besides just the guests and bots that are eating up my pageviews. I went through 100 in 5 minutes alone. x.x

I've been trying to find an advertisement service that will let me use them despite "adult content" buuut I'm having on clue. Adsense doesn't allow it and all the other ones pretty much seem like a scam or go over my head. Does anyone reading this have any suggestions on this front? I can take this part here to general talk if necessary. I'm slightly desperate so if I did this wrong, please just let me know, thank you =)

1) You could edit the templates (Forum Wrapper) to display a different message to guests. You could give them more information about the site other than just a login message. e.g. {if $[current_user.is_guest} This is what they see {else} your regular forum template goes here {/if}

2) There's nothing that can literally stop people from loading your site. You could have someone create a plugin to track how often pages are loaded for a user and then take some action based on that, but it's not realistic for actually enforcing anything. I think doing what I recommended in #1 would be better and may end up with the desired effect (and reduces bot pageviews). You can give more information to guests other than a simple "you must login" message while still limiting them to one page.

3) You should check with VigLink.com to see if you can get them enabled, that may be a starting point if they don't have any rules against the content. It's also setup and ready to work in your Admin Panel (Admin > Marketing > VigLink). Other easy options are 1) asking your members to pitch in (e.g. send you PayPal donations), or 2) searching google for ad networks appropriate for your site

[VS Admin]

Apr 22, 2014 18:31:06 GMT -8 Baller95 said:

The page views thing is what killed it for me - support.proboards.com/post/5822504/thread

I wish it somehow worked like how the ad-free worked. Another solution would be something like this - support.proboards.com/thread/509172/forum-views-counted

Also I wanted to point out here to you Baller95 my suggestion of #1 above, which severely limits guest access on the forum and thus means the majority of your pageviews will all be from members.

[Former Member]

Those are some fantastic ideas, thank you so much for the suggestions and I will see what I can cook up for guests =D

[VS Admin]

Let us know if there's anything we can do to help. If you need help with the template, I'm sure our support staff will be able to assist (or ping me if I'm needed)

[Former Member]

I removed the boards and threads and categories from the homepage and then I'm going to go through and actually make sure those boards aren't accesssible unless they have a certain ID, remove the nav bar from guests, etc. =) Thank you again for the suggestion, I'm hoping it will help lower my pageviews without deterring new members! I'm also looking into VigLink, trying to figure out the advertisement jargon to learn what the heck I can use, and asking plugin creators whether their plugin contributes to pageviews or not so I can be cautious of them. Thank you again for your help, I have a feeling you never sleep haha

[Former Member]

Alright, ran into a problem. I removed the boards from the homepage and now am trying to make the boards' thread list/content inaccessible to guests through the templates. I do not want to do this through board permissions. I don't see anything wrong with the code I am using but it is still not working--when a guest, I can put in the URL to a board and go right to it. The way I have it set up, the first {if} statements make it so nothing show up on certain board IDs, this is for a scavenger hunt thing and is unrelated. the next {elseif} statement (I already tried a regular {if} statement to no success) basically says if it's not a member and they aren't on any of the boards that I want them to see, then just show this message. Someone please point out where my coding error is or why this is not working.

{if $[board.id] >= "203" && $[board.id] <= "214" || $[board.id] == "216"}

{elseif !$[current_user.is_member] && !$[board.id] == "43" && !$[board.id] == "152" && !$[board.id] == "70" && !$[board.id] == "78" && !$[board.id] == "40" && !$[board.id] == "85" && !$[board.id] == "105" && !$[board.id] == "79" && !$[board.id] == "97" && !$[board.id] == "154"}

<div style="font-size: 20px; font-family: georgia; text-align: center; color: #2d2821; font-variant: small-caps;">Please login to see this board.</div>

{else}

{if $[board.sub_board_list]}
<div class="container boards">
<div class="content cap-bottom">
$[board.sub_board_list]
</div>  
</div>
{/if}
{if $[display_thread_list]}
<div{if $[viewing_bookmarks]} id="bookmarks"{/if} class="container threads">
       
       <div class="control-bar ui-helper-clearfix $[scroll_class]" style="margin-bottom: -10px;">
$[search]
<div class="controls">
$[selection_menu]
$[action_menu]
</div>
$[pagination]
           
</div>
       
<div class="title-bar">

<h1><span style="align: center; text-align: center;">$[board.display_name]</span></h1>
           
           
           
           {if $[create_thread_button]}
           <ul class="controls"><li><a style="font-variant: small-caps !important; font-family: times new roman !important; letter-spacing: 3px !important; font-size: 14px!important; padding: 5px !important; color: #ffeedd;" href="$[create_thread_button.href]">Write Thread</a></li></ul>
{/if}
</div>

<div class="content cap-bottom">
<table class="list">

<tbody class="$[list_class]">
$[thread_list]
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
</div>
{/if}


<center><div><a class="click-to-expand" style="font-variant: small-caps; letter-spacing: 6px; font-size: 28px; color: #2d2821; font-family: georgia; text-align: center; align: center;text-shadow: -1px 1px 1px #000000; margin-bottom: -5px; font-weight: bold">Click for Board Information</a></div>

<div class="hide-and-show" style="background-color: #75664e; border-radius: 5px; width: 100%; display: none;">
   <table width="100%">

                                               
   <tr><td><div style="font-variant: small-caps; letter-spacing: 3px; font-size: 25px; color: #2d2821; font-family: georgia; margin-bottom: -11px; padding-left: 50px;">Total Threads</div></td></tr>
                       
                       <tr><td><hr style="border: 2px solid #2d2821;"></td></tr>
                       
                       <tr><td><div style="font-variant: small-caps; letter-spacing: 3px; font-size: 25px; color: #2d2821; font-family: georgia; align: right; text-align: right; margin-top: -18px; padding-right: 50px;">{if $[total_threads] == -1}0{else}$[total_threads]{/if}</div></td></tr>
                       
                       <tr><td><div style="font-variant: small-caps; letter-spacing: 3px; font-size: 25px; color: #2d2821; font-family: georgia; margin-bottom: -11px; padding-left: 50px;">Total Posts</div></td></tr>
                       
                       <tr><td><hr style="border: 2px solid #2d2821;"></td></tr>
                       
                       <tr><td><div style="font-variant: small-caps; letter-spacing: 3px; font-size: 25px; color: #2d2821; font-family: georgia; align: right; text-align: right; margin-top: -18px; padding-right: 50px;">{if $[total_posts] == -1}0{else}$[total_posts]{/if}</div></td></tr>
                       
                       {if $[board.moderators_link]}<tr><td><div style="font-variant: small-caps; letter-spacing: 3px; font-size: 25px; color: #2d2821; font-family: georgia; margin-bottom: -11px; padding-left: 50px;">Establishment Owner</div></td></tr>
                       
                       <tr><td><hr style="border: 2px solid #2d2821;"></td></tr>
                       
   <tr><td><div style="font-variant: small-caps; letter-spacing: 3px; font-size: 25px; color: #2d2821; font-family: georgia; align: right; text-align: right; margin-top: -18px; padding-right: 50px; text-transform: lowercase;">{foreach $[board.moderator]}
$[board.moderator.name]
{/foreach}</div></td></tr>{/if}
                       
                       
                       <tr><td><div style="font-variant: small-caps; letter-spacing: 3px; font-size: 25px; color: #2d2821; font-family: georgia; margin-bottom: -11px; padding-left: 50px;">Create Threads</div></td></tr>
                       
                       <tr><td><hr style="border: 2px solid #2d2821;"></td></tr>
                       
   <tr><td><div style="font-variant: small-caps; letter-spacing: 3px; font-size: 25px; color: #2d2821; font-family: georgia; align: right; text-align: right; margin-top: -18px; padding-right: 50px; text-transform: lowercase;">{if $[can.create_threads]}yes{else}no{/if}</div></td></tr>
                       
                       <tr><td><div style="font-variant: small-caps; letter-spacing: 3px; font-size: 25px; color: #2d2821; font-family: georgia; margin-bottom: -11px; padding-left: 50px;">Reply to Threads</div></td></tr>
                       
                       <tr><td><hr style="border: 2px solid #2d2821;"></td></tr>
                       
   <tr><td><div style="font-variant: small-caps; letter-spacing: 3px; font-size: 25px; color: #2d2821; font-family: georgia; align: right; text-align: right; margin-top: -18px; padding-right: 50px; text-transform: lowercase;">{if $[can.reply_to_threads]}yes{else}no{/if}</div></td></tr>
                       
                       <tr><td><div style="font-variant: small-caps; letter-spacing: 3px; font-size: 25px; color: #2d2821; font-family: georgia; margin-bottom: -11px; padding-left: 50px;">Make Polls</div></td></tr>
                       
                       <tr><td><hr style="border: 2px solid #2d2821;"></td></tr>
                       
   <tr><td><div style="font-variant: small-caps; letter-spacing: 3px; font-size: 25px; color: #2d2821; font-family: georgia; align: right; text-align: right; margin-top: -18px; padding-right: 50px; text-transform: lowercase;">{if $[can.create_polls]}yes{else}no{/if}</div></td></tr>
   
   <tr><td><div style="font-variant: small-caps; letter-spacing: 3px; font-size: 25px; color: #2d2821; font-family: georgia; margin-bottom: -11px; padding-left: 50px;">Staff Viewing</div></td></tr>
                       
                       <tr><td><hr style="border: 2px solid #2d2821;"></td></tr>
                       
   <tr><td><div style="font-variant: small-caps; letter-spacing: 3px; font-size: 25px; color: #2d2821; font-family: georgia; align: right; text-align: right; margin-top: -18px; padding-right: 50px; text-transform: lowercase;">$[total_board_staff]</div></td></tr>
   
   <tr><td><div style="font-variant: small-caps; letter-spacing: 3px; font-size: 25px; color: #2d2821; font-family: georgia; margin-bottom: -11px; padding-left: 50px;">Members Viewing</div></td></tr>
                       
                       <tr><td><hr style="border: 2px solid #2d2821;"></td></tr>
                       
   <tr><td><div style="font-variant: small-caps; letter-spacing: 3px; font-size: 25px; color: #2d2821; font-family: georgia; align: right; text-align: right; margin-top: -18px; padding-right: 50px; text-transform: lowercase;">$[total_board_members]</div></td></tr>
   
   <tr><td><div style="font-variant: small-caps; letter-spacing: 3px; font-size: 25px; color: #2d2821; font-family: georgia; margin-bottom: -11px; padding-left: 50px;">Guests Viewing</div></td></tr>
                       
                       <tr><td><hr style="border: 2px solid #2d2821;"></td></tr>
                       
   <tr><td><div style="font-variant: small-caps; letter-spacing: 3px; font-size: 25px; color: #2d2821; font-family: georgia; align: right; text-align: right; margin-top: -18px; padding-right: 50px; text-transform: lowercase;">$[total_board_guests]</div></td></tr>
   
   <tr><td><div style="font-variant: small-caps; letter-spacing: 3px; font-size: 25px; color: #2d2821; text-shadow: -1px 1px 1px #000000; font-family: georgia; margin-bottom: -11px; text-align: center;">Those Viewing</div></td></tr>
                       
                       <tr><td><hr style="border: 2px solid #2d2821;"></td></tr>
                       
   <tr><td><div style="font-variant: small-caps; letter-spacing: 1px; font-size: 15px; color: #2d2821; font-family: georgia; text-align: center; align: center; margin-bottom: 20px;" class="foreachuser">
       {foreach $[board_user]}
       $[board_user]{foreach $[board_user.custom_field]}{if $[board_user.custom_field.name] == "OOC Account"} [$[board_user.custom_field.value]]{/if}{/foreach}$[board_user.comma]
{/foreach}
       
       
       </div></td></tr>
   
   </table></div>
                     
                       

   {/if}
<style>
   .fontsize { font-size: 20px !important; }
   
   .boardmoderatorslink a{font-variant: small-caps !important; letter-spacing: 3px !important; font-size: 30px !important; color: #2d2821 !important; text-shadow: -1px 1px 1px #000000 !important; font-family: georgia !important;}
   
   .foreachuser a{font-variant: small-caps !important; letter-spacing: 1px !important; font-size: 15px !important; font-family: georgia !important;}
</style>
   

[Baller95]

VS Admin it's important for guests to view to the site since we offer information and support to those that need it. A lot of the extra guests page views are mainly bots but I need the bots as well so our sites shows up in search engines. I'd have no problem running ads or viglink, etc since I would have having any adult content like pornography but my intentions are to get rid of ads for guests and members which is why I currently pay for ad free.

[Former Member]

Bump for help with my last post in this thread before this one =3

[David Clark]

Hey ₪» ⅀ ƪ Ƒ «₪,

I'm not sure right off the bat what might be causing your issue but I took a look at your code and something that jumps out at me initially is that on your {elseif} line after your opening {if} statement, you have a lot of this:

!$[board.id] == "43"

Which I don't believe is the syntax you'd want to go for. Instead, I believe you were shooting for-

$[board.id] != "43"

Which would mean (in english) "If the board ID does not equal 43, then...". If I'm on the right track with that, you can try replacing every iteration of "!$[board.id] ==" with the syntax above and see if that helps.

[Former Member]

I'll try it. I know I've tried != and been told to use !$ and I've done !$ and been told to use != so it kinda seems like it varies on what I should use and when. xD I'll give it a shot and let you know!