I could use some tech advice and I know this is where Mastodon shines!

Shaula Evans

I'm need to create a #forum (long term) as part of a project. The team was going to default to a Facebook group, I have begged them not to, now it's on me to propose alternatives.

Needs
- private
- small scale
- safe from AI scraping
- for low tech users
- easy to set up & administer
- does not need hardcore moderation tools

(I've run many forums in the past but I've been out of the loop a while.)

Any platform recs? 1/2

Shaula Evans

Expanded specs

- We need an actual forum, not a Discord or Slack channel.

- DMs/PMs are not a priority.

- The project's larger website is built on WordPress. WordPress forum plug-ins are a hypothetical option.

- This is a small project and I have no budget for tech so I need options that are free or super cheap. (Welcome to life in no-/low-budget spaces.)

My brief is only: "Okay, then find a replacement for Facebook groups" so that's all I have for specs for now. 2/2

jon ⚝

@ShaulaEvans
Flarum is a nice Forum that always amazed me with its simple design.

PointlessOne :loading:

@ShaulaEvans Flarum (https://flarum.org/) comes to mind. It's a similar stack to WordPress. Has a tonne of extensions if you need some specific features that don't come baked in.

Daniël Klabbers

@pointlessone @ShaulaEvans there are extensions that integrate flarum with WordPress as well

https://flarum.org/extensions?tableSortColumn=created_at&tableSortDirection=desc&tableFilters[is_subscribed][isActive]=false&tableSearch=wordpress

julian

@[email protected] have you considered NodeBB? We also federate via ActivityPub so there's that too

Unfortunately no forum is safe from AI scraping yet.