BulletinBoards Review
Last Version | 8.8 (July 29th, 2009). | Released under | Proprietary License. |
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Company | Bulletin Board Corp. | ||
Price | $29.85 quarterly / $101.50 yearly. |
Last Version | 8.8 (July 29th, 2009). | Released under | Proprietary License. |
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Resources |
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Company | Bulletin Board Corp. | ||
Price | $29.85 quarterly / $101.50 yearly. |
Bulletin Boards offers private message boards since 1996. It's a really ancient website, that has clearly an old look when you compare it to modern interface like Twitter or Facebook. Once this first (bad) surprise and potentially disagreement passed, you slowly discover that BulletinBoards provides most and sometimes more features than the existing forum softwares.
The main goal of BulletinBoards is to literally provide a board where people post messages. It could therefore be more compared to a public and web based mailing list. It provides several possible appearance, from the most simple to the most advanced. Its threaded appearance for example, that divides the browser view in two panes, is perfect to consult and read several pages and discussions comfortably.
Here are some populated sample boards, that describe very well the possible thread modes:
This is true, but BulletinBoards provides its services to really important names in United States: American Society of Retina Specialists, NASDA National Assn., University of West Florida, MTV Networks International, Virginia Neurological Society, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles,... These services do not require any eye candy, but need to be effective, so let's see if this is true.
Browser & Client Requirements | ||||||||
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Compatible Browsers
List of Compatible Browsers.
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Required Plugins/Technologies
Additional or Basic Requirements from Client Side.
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HTML. | |||||||
Localization
Languages supported by BulletinBoards.
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No.
No.
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The underlying technology is the ColdFusion framework, from Adobe, that is based on ActionScript and Java.
Compatibility with Smartphones | |
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Compatible SmartPhones
Compatible Cellphone Brands and Manufacturers.
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Application Distribution / Type
How it is distributed / App Store Availability
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![]() BulletinBoards for Smartphones - Forums |
![]() BulletinBoards for Smartphones - Latest Posts |
![]() BulletinBoards for Smartphones - Topics |
Forum Threads / Topics | |||
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Forum Style | Flat/Threaded | Forum Organization |
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Thread Icons | No | Topic Tags | - |
Hot Topics | - | Unread Topics | Yes |
Hidden Topics | Yes | Sticky Threads | Yes |
Related Threads | - | Detect Duplicate Threads | No |
Announcements | Yes |
Posting Messages / Answers | |||
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Message Editing Form
How to Post Messages.
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Post Editing Format
Supported Markup Language (HTML, Wiki, BBCode,...).
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Spell Checker
Checks typos on posts and topics.
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Yes | ||
Image Attachment
How Images can be Attached and Displayed in Message Posts.
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Embedded Videos
Videos and Media Websites Supported in Message Posts.
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No. |
Posting Features | |||
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Quick Reply Box | No | Smileys | Yes |
Attachments | Yes | Syntax Highlighting | No |
Message Rating
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Yes | Message Quoting | Yes |
The WYSIWYG editor is not included by default, but it is really simple to configure. It is exactly the same with HTML, that could be enabled, or not, depending on your needs.
Post Rating is called Votable Messages in the BulletinBoards terminology. See the complete list of features if needed. Post Quoting is even possible from multiple messages, to answer in the same comment to several questions.
Board managers can hide either entire forums or individual message topics from users, either by assigning "Restricted Access" to an entire Forum or modifying a users access privilege to prevent viewing of certain message topics. This allows the board manager to restrict access to a select group of users.
Hiding or Restricting access to forums and messages is accomplished via the Board Management, Board Forums section, then assign Restricted access to specific forums. Another more finer granularity of Restriction can be accomplished by modifying an individual's profile. to prevent access… via the Password Protection section of the Board Management page.
Posting by email is even possible with the Email Notification Plus
Additional Forum Features | |
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Poll Creation | Yes |
Private Messages
Users Can Communicate using an Internal Messaging System.
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Yes |
Instant Messaging
Discuss with Visitors and Members in a Chat Window.
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No |
Calendar
Topic, Member Birthdays, Events are available from the perspective of a calendar.
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Yes |
Online Users List
Connected User List (Often Found in the Forum Footer).
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Plugin |
Members List
Search and Consult the List of Members.
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Yes |
Technical Features | |
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Bundled Software
Additional Software Available with the Forum.
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No. |
RSS/Atom Syndication
Posts and Threads Exported to Feeds Aggregators
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No. |
Friendly URLs
URLs are clear and contain information about the topic (title, message,...).
Highly recommended for SEO purposes.
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No |
Post by Email
Post Directly From your Email Box.
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Yes |
Remote Control
Remote Control from External Software/Websites.
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No. |
Cache System
Cache pages to optimize bandwidth and load times.
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No |
Template Engine
It is easier to theme a forum using a known template engine (more docs & examples,...).
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Private messages are actually posts that have a different scope, to a restricted list of users.
Polls can be made available to only the board manager or to all users via the board manager's Management page, Main Settings section, then answer "Yes/No" to either of the following options:
Member Options & Features | |
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Bookmark Threads
User Profiles Keep a List of Followed Posts and Topics.
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No |
Email Notifications
Receive Emails When New Messages are Posted in Followed Threads.
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Yes |
Export private messages
Private Messages can be Downloaded by Users.
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No |
Payment Subscriptions
Paying Membership Subscription.
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No |
User Profiles | |
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User Profile
User Information and Settings.
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Yes |
Avatars
Pictures of Members, Useful to Easily Identify their Posts.
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Yes |
Signature
Signatures Added at the Bottom of Each Message.
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Yes |
Ranks
Tags and Labels Identifying the Members, based on specific criteria (Total Posts Count, Credits, Moderation Level...)
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No |
Moderation & Threads Management | ||
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Moderation |
Pre-Moderation
In pre-moderation, every post needs to be validated by a moderator before being published.
Post-Moderation
The moderation is done afterwards, if an administrator notices a problem or if a member reports something wrong. Each message is therefore directly published.
Reactive Moderation
By reporting any problems, members are reactive against moderation problems.
Moderators' main objective is to regularly check user reports, without having to follow each threads.
Distributed Moderation
By organizing the forum around moderators, who are usually power and experienced users, moderation is self-powered and only depends on the community.
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Moderator per section | Yes | |
Global Moderator | Yes | |
Move Threads
Move Threads from Topics
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Yes | |
Shadow Topics
When a thread is moved, the previous position is kept in order to inform users of this modification.
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No | |
Close/Lock Threads
Close/Lock Problematic Threads
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Yes |
Users Management | |
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User Groups
Organize and define groups of users, and apply different actions and settings on them.
Common Groups: Guests, Members, Moderators, Administrators,... |
Yes |
User Registration |
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Limit Features For New Users
Features are limited if a user has created a small number of posts.
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No |
Guest Posting | Yes |
Multiple Administrators | Yes |
Send Warnings to Users
Inform users by email or PM that they infringe the board rules, and could be excluded for such behavior.
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Yes |
Forum/Section Restricted Access
ACL could be use to determine if a user or a group of users can access (in read only, post message) to some sections
and topics.
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Yes |
User Banishment | Yes |
Database Management | |
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Backup Database
Backup forum datas that you could store somewhere else.
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Yes |
Prune Database
Remove old and unused datas from your forum.
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Yes |
Restore Database
Restore a backup of your database if the previous install crashed.
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Yes |
Administration Tools | |||
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Statistics
Statistics about posts count, users, traffic...
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Yes |
Error/Notice Log Viewer
Forum Logs could be consulted.
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No |
Tasks Scheduler
Maintenance tasks are regularly launched and could be scheduled.
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No |
Mass Mailing
Send an email (newsletters, advertisements, information,...) to all users.
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Yes |
Installation & Upgrading | |
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Installation Method
How this forum software could be installed.
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Installation Wizard |
Upgrading Method
How this forum software could be upgraded.
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Upgrade Wizard |
Updates Notifications
The Admin Panel informs you when a new version is released.
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No |
Forum Migration
Convert an existing forum to BulletinBoards.
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No. |
Security & Spam Protection | ||
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CAPTCHA
Captcha protects your forum against spam bots.
e.g.,
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Yes
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Abnormal Behavior Detection
Detect users or request strange behaviors, and try to process proactive actions.
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No | |
Words Filtering
Offensing Words are automatically replaced.
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Yes | |
User Blacklist
Prevent specific user accounts to register (based on email address, name,...) and disable potentially harmful members.
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Yes | |
IP Blocking
Prevent access to spam robots and other scripts that could attempt
DDOS or Brute Force attacks on your forum.
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Yes |
HTML and Profanity Filters is the way to filter words.
Customization | |||
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Plugins
Add new features to your forum installation.
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No.
~0 Available Plugins.
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Themes
Modify the style of your forum easily.
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Yes.
~100 Available Themes. |
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Custom BBCodes | No | Smiley Packs | No |
Custom Thread Icons |
No |
Additional User Profile Fields
Ask more about your members with custom fields.
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No |
Integration with Applications, Social Networks, Intranet... | |
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Social Networks
Users can share information from their social network account...
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CMS / Blog Bridges
Integration with existing Web publishing tools.
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No. |
User Accounts Integration
Do users be able to log in with their corporate, Google, Facebook,... accounts?
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No. |
Content Aggregation
Forum allows to integrate news and content from other website,
using an aggregation protocol (RSS, RDF, Atom,...).
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No. |
An automatic bridge is able to convert your post to a blog entry, and the reverse is also possible. Note that integration with third party website is done with small icons available at the bottom of each pages.
Norms & Accessibility | |
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HTML / XHTML Markup
See W3C HTML Definition.
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HTML 4.01.
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Click to see if it respects HTML norms.
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CSS Stylesheets
See W3C CSS Definition.
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CSS 1. ![]()
Click to see if it respects CSS norms.
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Accessibility (WAI)
Web Accessibility ensures that the forum is usable by people of all abilities and disabilities.
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Conformance to A level.
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UTF-8 Support
Default encoding used to support all locales and countries.
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Yes |
Conformance to W3C Norms
Does BulletinBoards correctly follow (X)HTML and CSS norms?
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No. |
As we wrote previously BulletinBoards is slightly old, and it does not follow the new HTML norms.
Key points and major differences that make BulletinBoards unique:
Despite on its old look, BulletinBoards is quite a good surprise. It correctly does its job, and the support is one of the key point of this service. BulletinBoards is a perfect alternative if you don't look for advanced features but more want to use a traditional and efficient forum software. We would particularly suggest the usage of this forum software for a more mature community, about for example serious subject like health or trips. This is clearly the target of this forum software.
The existing and impressive count of forum communities hosted there is extraordinary, and it proves the quality of this company, that exists since 1996.