Ideas requested - Neighborhood forums

[JamminR]

I live in a new neighborhood (<4 years) of almost 100 homes.
For the past 2 years I've lived here, email has been used to communicate.
A community directory gets sent out every year or so. Some nice neighbor just started with it as a neighborhood BBQ, and tries to keep it updated when someone moves in or out.
The problem with the directory, and the emails is that, email isn't a guarantee to reach all that might want to be included.
I know several times my wife told me about emails she's gotten that I didn't (and vice versa)
Due to some vandalism, there was even a pretty good email fight/debate going on. Some people asked to be removed.
To be quite honest, we both usually get more than we want.
(Seriously... would you email a whole neighborhood just to ask if someone had a DVD title you could borrow? - that just seems to me bad ettiquette)

Anyway, for the neighborhood, I made a web site. I'm making a forum. This forum will be for my neighborhood only (and a few invited guests/relatives/friends decided on a case by case basis). Whole families, including kids _when_ authorized by parents.
I need ideas for what you think a 100+ family community, all who might know each other, might like.
General chat
Trading Post (For selling/borrowing/wanted/etc - that DVD!!)
Kids Corner
News - Neighborhood - (few moderators who also do the community directory, etc)
News - Site/Forum - my realm!
Local Entertainment (non-franchise restaurants, upcoming events, <50 mile things to do)

Though my next step is to ask much of the neighborhood (in email *SIGH*), I'd like to have at least a few more before going 'public' with them.

[Megiddo]

Sounds pretty good to me. If I were you, I'd probably link everyone's profile up to their real name and lot, as I'd be worried what could happen with anonymity in that situation.

I'm also worried about the inevitable series of people that has hard feelings over something trivial. How are you going to deal with that in such a small group?

[JamminR]

Accounts - I'm manually registering every one, name will be real name, location will equal address. I may remove location from showing and actually add "Address" custom field.
I'm going to look into custom mods re: Invite only and change error message for "registration is closed" to "invite only" (no mod required for the error change I don't think, I've not looked that deep into the files yet)

Hard Feelings -
Well, that's just it.
They already exist. Several long stories. Short story, people are different, and the sales realtor who sold 90% of the homes here told people what they wanted to hear regarding various 'after the developer leaves, X will happen' situations. The differences clashed when everyone realized just how shady he was when the last home was sold.

Part of this forum effort is to allow people who don't care enough to read what others have to say "not" to.
They don't have to open thier email box with trepidation. They can avoid the forum if someone has upset them, or, they can add someone to thier ignore list for a while.
Even if it's a major hate fest, at least it will keep it out of people's mailboxes.
Including mine.

[lavacano201014]

What are you using for the forum stuff? SMF? phpBB?

[JamminR]

SMF.
I've seen/used the admin panels for friends using phpBB and they're just... *cringe*

[JamminR]

Ok, so I've got the site and forum up and running. Last Sunday 8/8, I emailed our community directory of ~75 listings (of about 100 homes) about the site and forum.
4 responded, 1 was asking if I could give pointers on web site for thier business, 1 updating the email address I used, and two who actually seemed interested in participating.
So far, I've invited/registered about 15 total people. 5 last month (the neighborhood trustees who own the bank account that pays for our water/electricity to light the sign at front, my neighbors closest to me, and the few who responded. Of those, 10 logged in once, 2 check in to the forum regularly, including me.
Bah. I guess I'll need to do paperbox flyers.

I'm building an "info" page for the neighborhood public site.
Plan on including a link to homes for sale within our neighborhood (found a local realtor that uses a company website to list by community), Local school websites, public services such as volunteer fire dept, garbage collection compaines (we're county, no fire/city trash pickup), pools/parks, etc.

Imagine yourself searching for a cool place to live.
Besides seeing a neighborhood having it's own website and forum, what info would you like to know about a community listed all in one place before having to call a realtor or emailing the person who ran the website?

I don't wish to go too indepth. I found an (OLD) site the exclusive (CRAPPY BUTTHOLE) realtor had before the developer sold the last lot. It had floor plans of all the houses here. I'm not going that indepth.

[JamminR]

Its official. I've supported Ulyssesmod forums too long.
I'm editing/developing some content for my neighborhood's web site tonight and just found myself, for the third time, typing in forums.ulyssesmod.net instead of my own neighborhood's forum.

[Stickly Man!]

Hahaha, It's luring you in JamminR, you cannot resist!

People need help!
The world needs saving!
And it's up to you!
All you have to do is come here! 

*on topicish*
I must say, our neighborhood around here doesn't have any sort of mailing lists or whatnot, we kinda just all know each other through our church haha!
So it's really interesting to read about how this is turning out for ya

[Megiddo]

I must say, our neighborhood around here doesn't have any sort of mailing lists or whatnot, we kinda just all know each other through our church haha!

Very unique to Utah.

Don't worry JamminR, the more we can suck your soul, the better!

[JamminR]

With over 80 homes in one neighborhood,  I only know about 10 other houses/neighbors that attend the same Church.
Now, that doesn't mean more don't go to the same, just means the possibilities are endless.
I live in a diverse, mostly Christian, area, all kinds of Churches.
Baptists, Catholics, Lutherans, Jehova's Witnesses, Jews, Methodists, Mormons, Non-denominational, Protestants, ...

Oh, and so far, only 5 emails since I sent out the notice last Sunday 8/8 about my forum.
It's been slow going. I did get an interesting idea back from one of the trustees though, which is what I'm working on this weekend.


I am JamminR of Ulysses.
(No. That's not my domain)
Resistance is futile.
(No. No NO NO. That's not my domain)
I will be assimilated.
(Nooooooooooooo)

[drake90001]

I think, that you should make it look a little bit like my website: http://epicsandbox.co.cc/
It is a simplemachines forum, but with a nice little theme.

[JamminR]

Yeah, Crip has some nice themes. I don't like the forced header images though.
My site isn't just a forum though, its a nice website that links to a forum. A site that has a bit of info about my neighborhood.
I added a "info" link that includes schools, local food, services, and an "available homes" link for those that might look to move in.
As for your site,"My Community" Anecdota isn't a bad header image, but I had to edit the one I'm currently using to remove "BlackRain V2" from the header.
As for the site, I use this template, modified for PHP, which closely matches the BlackRainv2 theme. that I use for the board.
By the way, if you haven't checked out Crip's other themes, you can see many (all?) of them by going to http://demo.jpr62.com/index.php and clicking on each one from the drop down.
Over all nice, some just silly, with exception of the header images on some.