I need to start a new forum

I talked to my therapist about this whole birthmothers support group issue,

She said if I can’t find a forum,

I need to start a forum.

To be clear, there are birthmother forums,

But they are mostly run by adoption agencies and are predatory.

The others are kind of just blogs run by angry women who regret having their baby adopted.

I need something more like this forum, but for birthmothers.

No agencies and stuff.

I know it wouldn’t be active for a while,

And even then may not be super active ever.

Also, I know it could be kind of expensive.

It would be like a first step towards having a crisis pregnancy center.

What do you think?

Is it worth the hassle?

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maybe it could help people out who are in similar situations. But I am not sure if it’s worth the hassle… I mean if there isn’t many forums around for it that it can mean people are not really looking for it. But you could always try it…

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I think it’s definitely worth it. Once you get it up and running, you’ll be helping so many people including yourself. Go for it!

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I don’t know @GoldenRex
Starting your own forum could be a bit stressful but it might be worth it.

You can get a lot out of it

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I would start by assessing the already existing venues, and if there are enough disaffected people there who feel marginalized, then yes, it may be worth starting your own. It’s such a narrow demographic that I wonder how many quality users you’d get.

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I tried to join the subreddit, because it’s private,

And apparently it’s so inactive that there’s no one there to approve my request to join.

So I think I might do it.

I guess I need to research how to start.

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This is what I did.

There are a lot of active birthmothers support groups,

But they’re all run by adoption agencies.

I feel like there are a lot of people who could use an unbiased forum.

But the inactive subreddit is not encouraging,

So I see what you mean.

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I’ve had two of my own forums in my life. I registered both domains, and used phpBB as the forum software. Free and easy to use. Don’t host with GoDaddy. They have cute commercials, but every first-person account I’ve had of them has been negative. Check out the wikiHow I linked above. I can also try to answer questions you may have if you decide to take the plunge. :slight_smile:

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@SzAdmin might have some advice for you. I know about moderating a site, but not about running one. As far as I know, the cost is significant.

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My friend had to do that as well. A forum we were in suddenly decided to shut itself down and the admins gave us a short notice.

So we had no choice but to make ourselves a new forum.

Discourse seems to have a good platform, but according to my friend I’ve heard you have to pay for it to operate. We can even do a fundraiser for you should you choose to go on that route.

I’ll ask my friends on that forum if they have any advice on creating a forum like the one I am in.

Another option would be hosting a discord server. This option seems good since making a discord account and hosting a discord server is completely free.

Best of luck!

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Thanks,

I might actually PM you about it if/when I decide to get started.

I appreciate it.

@Ninjastar, I think I’d be okay with the cost associated with it,

Within reason.

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We could start a fundraiser for you.

(I’ll also donate a small amount!)

PS I’m starting to feel the effects of sleeping med so please keep me updated!! :two_hearts:

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That’s really sweet,

But I think I could get my husband to cover the cost.

I’d be like investing in a new hobby for me…

:smile:

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It is a hobby that could change lives and impact so many people out there!

:two_hearts:

Running a forum is very difficult, however, so should you get tired you could always appoint another admin to run it while you are away.

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There are plenty of reputable sites that give you free domain hosting for a year, and then charge you a nominal fee after that, once per year (think around $5-10). As I said phpBB is free, and there are others. SZAdmin, for reasons known only to him, pays a hefty sum to use this Discourse forum software, which I think is clunky. It’s weird to scroll and scroll. phpBB lets you make subforums (think of this site, but a subforum for news, one for medication, one for school/work, etc), which has always seemed more logical to me. phpBB is also very robust and lets you toggle so many different settings that you can spend days playing with it, getting it to what you want.

Feel free to PM me. It’s open day or night, 24/7, to meet all of your inquiring needs. :slight_smile:

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i started to like this discourse forum that we use here… i think it’s handy once you get used to it. I like it better than the phpBB forums.

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What about a Facebook group first? Those are easier for people to find and then once you get a good group you can start the forum and migrate over.

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That’s a really good idea, but I super hate Facebook.

May need to get past that though to get this forum going.

Great thinking, @LED.

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If you need help, I’ve owned and ran sites. Ran a small parenting forum and a popular writing forum for a while.

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