Programmers needed for forum-building project

Hello All,

There is so much ground to cover! I've had this idea for a new forum application on my mind for almost six months now. It's one of those ideas that gets planted in the back of your head, then it grows and grows it just keeps growing and soon you can think of nothing else; it consumes you. Well this is how it has been for me, and I must say I think it is very good. I have been visualizing this for several months. So I've decide to take action, and pursue it, and here it is:

Background Information

As of this time we do not have a name for the forum software. But we are calling it it Codename: Evolution since my intention is for it to be a whole new evolution in forum software! I understand there are many other forum applications out there: vBulletin, IPB, and the major free ones, like phpBB, Simple Machines and punBB. Each has its strengths, and each has weaknesses inherent in them that I believe a new approach can solve. vBulletin - It is considered by many to be the highest standard in the industry. Not everyone can get their hands on it; it very expensive for many potential forum owners, and this discourages them from purchasing it. IPB - Most users do not like their staff, especially their President who constantly delays release dates, etc. It is also somewhat expensive, and it lacks features that are people prize in vB. phpBB - Arguably the most popular free BB out there is very nice. However, its quality, efficiency and features pale in comparison to the paid applications. It has a history marked by security holes, and since their staff is not getting paid, concerns may arise about timeliness and effectiveness of fixes. The same can be said for many of the other applications available at no cost.

Why another?

Why introduce another Bulletin Board on the market? As I mentioned earlier, each BB has its own weaknesses. We hope to eliminate all of the weakness the others have, and we've been brainstorming functionality that goes way beyond that offered by the strongest boards currently available.

Here (user devs password forums) is a list of mandatory/traditional features and innovative features, and we are adding more and tweaking this list every day. I'm confident this project can set a new standard for BBs, and I'm committed to putting together the right team to make it a reality.

How it came about

This idea came about as I was trying to find the BB that suited me best. When my forums were first made, we went with phpBB. We had registered about 25 members when phpBB was hacked. We did everything we could upgrade phpBB, PHP, MySQL, everything, but it was no use, the hacking continued relentlessly. We were forced to go to an alternative. phpBB was the best free BB in our eyes, and we wanted to make sure we didn't downgrade our functionality, especially with the number of modifications we'd make up to that point. So we purchased vB. vB was great once we laid down the cash, but everything can be improved, which we hope Evolution will do. We want to bring the best of every forum together into a single application and then take this a whole level higher.

What we need

Evolution is an idea waiting to be brought to life. We need people. We need as of this just only need programmers. We hope to get a one or two more programmers added to our current team. All participants need to be experienced and dedicated and at least 18 years of age to be legally bounded to our legal agreement. I am hoping to have this available for purchase in two years. Here is a rough timeline for which I'm shooting, starting with finding the right team.

1 Week - Our first meeting as a team, introducing ourselves, deciding where we want to start, who does what etc. From then on, we will have weekly meetings to see how everyone is doing, if anyone needs any help.

3 Months - Have our basic visual design template prepared, waiting it to be coded. Coding begins for the design. Designers will then focus on our main Web site. Programmers hopefully have most of the required files finished, and maybe even start work on the backend (including AdminCP).

6 Months - Designing and construction of the application's front end continues, along with work on a site for the application. AdminCP and required files as well as backend completed. Programming for the client side begins.

1 Year - Designers are finished with site, programmers will probably have a few changes etc. Programmers will continue finishing up client side, script installation and other last touches.

1-1/2 Years - Installation script nears completion.

1 Year, 8 Months - Application and site nearly complete. Final testing and tweaking takes place. Alpha is released.

1 year 10 months - Beta edition of our forum software is made available to a predetermined number of people for two months. After two months their software expires. We will make a decision as to whether testers will be given stable release licenses.

2 Years - The beta is complete, and we have applied all of our changes. 1.0 version is released and is ready for purchase.

As you can see its not a quick-and-dirty project. We want to take our time to create a product that stands out, quality over quantity (construction time). We want make it excellent, presentable to other companies, and to be competitors for other BBs like vBulletin. Most importantly, we have to identify and capture the market that needs our product.

For example, I'm proposing that this new system come with a parental control panel, where parents can sign up their children for a forum, and using their own CP, they can monitor their children's online activities. This would endear our product to companies and organizations that target minors, to the point that it might be the feature that sells the product. I'm proposing an optional self-imposed time/post limiting feature that can allow individuals to track, regulate and cap how much time they are spending on a site. This would help people with time management issues, and forum owners may find offering this sort of function makes for better quality contributions with less membership burnout.

I'm asking experienced programmers to contact me, at the very least to give me feedback on it, and at best, to be a part of the production team. If you know of anyone who might be a good fit for this project, I graciously request that you forward on my contact information so they can learn more about it from me.

There are still plenty of logistics that need to be sorted out. I understand developers are busy with their own projects, and we need to set realistic levels of involvement for people. There's the matter of pay; I'm asking for an investment of time on people's parts now for structured compensation in the future, and this needs to be ironed out. There are matters pertaining to effectively managing this project in light of geographic/time zone inconveniences. There are logistics I'm certain I haven't considered, and this is one area where your feedback would be most valuable to me.

You can PM me here, or reply to the thread with your contact information.

I look forward from hearing from you! Remember contacting someone never hurts, you may just fall as much in love with this project as I am!

Thank you everyone for reading this. I hope to hear from you soon!

To be absolutely honest, 2 years is an awfully long time to produce something as 'simple' as some forums, and attaching your life for 2 years to something as of this moment seems something that I'd be surprised many would do.

I'm all for freeware and the distripution of self-made code, but I also need to be fed during it Otherwise, I've already made my own forums and it took me 72 hours. Do they lack most of the features? Yep, sure they do, but they also work, are secure and have their own BBCode system with birthdays/profiles/private messaging and such. I'd be surprised if it took you even half the time you've suggested, unless the people you take on are either really slow, or perhaps know some bizarre coding techniques that I'm not aware of which requires it to take such a long time.

Don't take me as slating your project - I think it's a great idea. It's that I think your time situation will be the thing that brings you down.

I understand that people have their own lives. So I do not want them to spend every minute of every day programming the forums. So a 2 year plan is what is great, gives enough time for the designers and programmers to do their lives while doing this.

It will not be free other then during the beta stages, I am all for it too. But we will spending a lot of our time and hard work into this, and we need to be fed as you said, so we will charge, less then vB and less then IPB but more beautiful, securer, and have more features. So we need a devoted and dedicated team of programmers to accomplish this. Our designing team already is ready, legal agreement signed, They're ready! We're just waiting on the programming team.

2 years is a while but spending every minute of your life is a lot more then doing it over a span of 2 years, in your spare time.

Well, that is the positive of the project. But, the negative is that in 2 years time everything you discuss may already have come into existence, and if the project doesn't have proper financial backing, then your ability to market it as better then others which have solid ground could come to a dead-end, when you try and persuade specific people that they need it over VB. It's everyone's problem within a trade that is already dominated. If VB was known as insecure, then people may think differently. As you say, this is perhaps one of the large reasons for them chosing it over phpBB in the first place, but the chances of it being overtaken for features that aren't present, but may well be in 2 years, I see as a remote chance. Unless, of course, you're somehow able to trademark/copyright them all and prevent anyone else using the idea or anything remotely similar. And we all know where that ends up.

I'm going to sound a swine again, but it's not my intention (I think I must just be good at it), but if I were to do something like this, I'd do it with friends. It means we'd all be more dedicated to the project. It's my hardest aspect of being the boss - to expect other employees to have the same enthusiasm as me. I'm awake at 1am talking on some developing forums whilst helping people out with PHP problems. That's my love for the subject. My employees? Probably drunk or asleep somewhere hoping that Monday won't come soon. Well, I like to think not, but I can't quite see them enjoying work as much as me.

Well I unfortunately do not have any money set aside for the team as I know it will pay off in the end. But, since its a 2 year development project, its much easier to change things while its still in development then upgrade an existing program which then can cause many problems, especially if you were new to the project, or that person has quit.

I unfortunately, do not have many programming friends. All of the designers I know and trust them (almost with my life), so I know they can see it my way and they want to stick to it. So I am needing to know a a few people who may like this idea, and pursue it. Then I can get to know them better, and see if they're right for the team.

I couldn't agree more about phpBB to vB however, its also the features. Coming from a phpBB user then to a vB user myself. But vB is still lacking features, and still has the occasional hole as any software will. But I believe this is better, judging just by the logo my designers came up with is "evolutionary" it doesn't get it codename for nothing! I would love to have programming friends who would do this, sadly I do not so I needed to post this, and hopeful perk interest and get to know that individual better.

Edit: It also seems that I forgot to mention I do have the proper funds to market the BB, simply just not for the programming part...yet. But the members will get a huge even chunk of all sales, if its good that can be very much. Designing part is not of the worry, but if you do a great job and put in devotion into the programming part, it'll pay off.

Well, I'm not going to put you off your ambitions and dreams. Believe me, I'd love to do such a project. It's my intention to turn my own forums into a professional version once I have the time. It's not that I think they'll make anyone want them, but that I've put my name to them. And those may be the people you're after. Because you may lack talent due to lack of finances, and therefore have someone working for you who simply isn't particularly good at what they do.

But my advice to you is to simply gain someone who isn't a developer on the project to talk to about the specifics. Even if this is someone you have to pay for their time - it will be worth it. I know nothing about how to fix a computer, yet my friends know infinite amount, and if I ever need to pay for it to be repaired, I know what's what without being ripped off and lied to.
For example, an installation script, could take someone about 30 minutes. If you're producing the code to allow for different database designs, other then MySQL, it could all be done using OOP (object orientated programming) and be produced very simplistically.
Based on security, with sufficient funds, you could get an indepedent company to audit the work before it goes live, yet the price could be discovered to be quite significant.

I have already spoken to someone who is not on the team and is completely against the idea. I took each one of his "supported ideas" turned them around, then proved to him that it will be successful. It will stand out, and I didn't have a single problem pointing out everything he said, not one key point I did not miss. I did not pay him for he is a friend but he opposes the project, he now doesn't support it nor does he not support it. He sees it my views, and he still know his views, so he doesn't care either way.

But I will not "hire" a company for this job since even after the project is done there will always be changes, new features and future upgrades. I need dedicated individuals who work well with others, and have the knowledge needed for this project, but who will see the pay off at the end not the beginning. But I hope some will see this and contact me about this, and I'll be more then happy to answer all questions, concerns you may have, because I know you have some. But I have a good feeling this will pay off.

How much work you put into it, your get that much, plus more.

Hey there,
Don't want to be a pain, but I was glancing over the feature list you posted, and the spell-checking concept caught my eye.

Have you considered how you're actually going to do that? I've looked into possibilities, and as far as I can see, your options are:

• Something running via an external site. Ugly.
• Your own dictionary in a database, and writing a clever checker yourself. Pretty damn resource-intensive, and difficult.
• Using php's pspell functions. Absolutely fine, except that people you're selling this too will need to have the right php extension installed.

That list is just an example of possible features, not every feature has been "hammered out", if you will. But some of the features may or may not be included in the board. If you did not know yet, I myself am not a programmer just the Project Leader. But I do know enough programming to oversee that it will work, but not enough to do it myself. Which is why we need devoted and talented individuals. If it needs to come to it, we will be willing to pay programmers, the longer you stay but, the more money you receive, but this is only a possibility.

As I stated in my previous post, if you have any more questions please contact me directly and not reply anymore. Simply because all of these issues has already been addressed and solved.

Hello again everyone,

We are again seeking more talented PHP developers. This time we are adding a special twist onto it. The more past relevant experience you have, and the harder you work, the more you will get paid.

You may get a little as $500, a share of all profits, or you can get $2500, and a good sum of all the profits. It can be anywhere in between, all depending on your effort, and past work experience. All payments will be paid 3 months after work agreement is signed (or when a stable investor is found).

I am opening a few new contact methods for y'all. You can contact me on AIM at Tyler11999, or you can email me at tyler@cbttechs.com I look forward to hearing from you!