Websites for HOAs

Search the internet for free discussion forums. There are a number available. Pick one that works for you. I chose AtFreeForum.com for one that I maintain. There may be better free ones. The forums are automatically deleted after 30 days or so if inactive. The free forums have some advertising, which is how they are paid. Each user is required to accept the Terms of Service which is one of the ways to control abuse.

The Free Forum approach is an excellent way to start a discussion forum when the owners associations refuses to do so on the official website. Make sure you state in the banner that the discussion forum is not the official website of the owners association.

I recommend one that uses phpbb software because it is widely used and has much supporting information on the internet.

As best I can tell, the only way to do the equivalent of password protection is to setup groups with the phpbb software, and then only allow groups to read and/or post. After registration, each new user requests to be added to the group. Permissions are available for the level of reading and/or posting.

Many newspapers use phpbb software. The Detroit Free Press is an example at http://forums.freep.com/index.php. Note that every post includes a "Report Abuse" link which is one of the ways to self-regulate inappropriate posts.

Most of the software systems for HOAs which can be obtained for a monthly fee include the discussion forum capability. Search this HOA Talk for Website software or equivalent for the many posts on that subject.

PS - Community123.com built and runs HOATalk.com.

Hi hoatalk,

Can you please provide example of free vanishing sites? I think the internet is now dominated by free services (google, yahoo, skype, facebook, megaupload, etc) and the trend will keep going as far as I see.

Just because a company offers a free version doesn't mean it will go out of business down the road. Nowadays, there are other ways to monetize than charging directly the customer a license or service fee. Selling ads space is an example. Reversely, because a company charges a fee doesn't make it profitable to stay in business in the long run. During the internet burst, I witnessed many companies selling multi-million software licenses going bankrupt.

In either case, one needs to find a company that can provide the service for a long time. But just saying companies w/ free services will bail out on the customers is bad generalization.

Cheers
Peter

You could sign up for an account at blogger.com (owned by google) and use Google Docs from the same account to provide access to certain invited people.