Aetherous

That's true for everyone involved recently. Right now I have it set up so that guests to the forum don't see the off topic forum (which has the pinned thread about a hidden political subforum). So, for all a visitor knows, the site is just spiritual etc discussions...which will attract the right crowd. Not trying to make a political site. Trying to set it up so that even newly registered users (who need to make 2 posts first) don't see the pinned post, either...only full members do. So far what I've tried hasn't seemed to work, and when someone is registered before posting anything, they

At Original Dao, the political forum is now entirely private. No one can see that it exists at all, unless they've been given permission to use it. In terms of anything leaking out (content of discussions, or what members are in there), if anyone is found to do that, they will lose permission to use it. I agree that people complaining at TDB often couldn't back up their claims of spillage.

In case of failure, I'll make sure of that. Being based on what we had at TDB, the site's main purpose is for spiritual etc topics. I'm pretty optimistic, though.

The political etc section requires that members request to join...what's contained in it isn't viewable without access (potentially, I could even hide the forum itself to everyone except those who request to join). If someone doesn't want to see or use it anymore, they can just request to be removed, and the site will go back to being only spiritual, martial arts, texts, health, etc discussion. There's going to be no leaking of the controversial topics section into the main forum, and if something controversial is posted in the main area, it'll be moved out of it. Religious deba

I appreciate all of the ideas and tips.

The site is up at www.originaldao.com, although totally in its early stages, with a lot of work that needs to be done. I want to listen to all suggestions people have for how they want their forum to be. The way I'm setting it up right now isn't necessarily how it needs to stay.

With trolling...it's annoying, but should it moderated out? I don't see it as something that interferes with anyone's safety. But maybe just like spam, it ruins the quality of a forum, and should be modded?

True, it could really make for a lot of moderation work. And I don't like the idea of moderators or myself deciding stinkiness of behavior...the goal is to be only determining whether someone: infringed on another person's safety, spammed, or did something illegal.

I definitely like that idea, and agree that exposure to what might be happening in other sections of the forum is great. So long as members are able to go to a Buddhist section, for instance, to see all of the Buddhist-flagged threads. If you have experience setting up a phpBB forum like this, feel free to send me a message.

Excellent idea!

Submitted a support ticket earlier today, they got back to me just now and said to contact someone else. I won't keep giving updates like this, but just know that I'm trying to get it running and will announce it here when it's functional. Should there be something similar to "General Discussion" at TDB except additionally allowing non-cultivation related posts at the same time? What does scrunch up the text mean? I like the idea of adding a wide array of emojis. It seems us former bums enjoyed being able to 'like' o

Waiting for the company to open up at 9am Mountain Time, so I can call them and get the forum software installed. Sorry for the delay. Hopefully the forum will be basically functional today, and then as the week progresses it can be tweaked. I've found a couple of stock photos for a banner that may work well. Chinese mountains and rivers with morning mist. If anyone else wants to look (at istockphoto for instance) and offer image suggestions here, feel free. Whatever image is chosen, I plan on sprucing it up with some nice looking text and Chinese characters in Adobe Il

Please keep me in line in terms of keeping things as unhindered as possible, if you have any suggestions.

I think it's totally possible! I hope there's no hard feelings about starting another forum when he had one up and running. I totally understand how people feel about this, especially with what Sean did in both of your cases (in Patrick's case, Sean posting pictures of someone who had gotten in a crash and was bloody and hurt, to represent him after banning him...violent and malicious!). In regard to Original Dao (which I'm going to try and have up soon), there will be a strict rule for moderators to not ban without warning. There will always be one warning wh