Discussion Board (Hosted)

Active Data Online Discussion Board (Hosted) is a hosted discussion board solution for Internet communities, social networks, question-and-answer sites, photo galleries, work teams, and discussion groups.

The software application is Active Data Online Discussion Board.

With software as a service, also known as on-demand software, instead of buying a server licence and hosting the software application on your own server or through your Web host, you rent the software -- pay a recurring service fee -- to have it set up and hosted on the Internet for you.

Depending on your requirements, renting the system might well turn out to be more cost effective than buying a licence and hosting it yourself. Certainly, the initial costs are lower and you pay as you go. And of course, if and when you want to stop the service, you can.

Discussion Board (Hosted) is also an inexpensive way to try an idea for an online community or a discussion group. If you were to buy a full licence and then stop using the software after a few months because the site did not take off or because you lost interest, the money spent on the licence would be wasted.

Another benefit is that you don't have to concern yourself with upgrades. All customers of Discussion Board (Hosted) will have the latest version set up for them as soon as it is available.

What's more, if your online community becomes popular and outgrows this service, you can choose to buy a full licence, receive the data, and run the community on your own server or Web host. If you were to host a discussion group at an ad-driven provider such as google groups, all of the data for your discussion group would always belong to the provider. Here, if you were to rent and subsequently buy a licence, all of the data would be yours to keep and profit from.

There are, however, restrictions and limitations.

Restrictions and limitations

Content: You must agree and adhere to the terms of use, specifically you cannot use the service to host material that is illegal, pornographic or contains nudity, defamatory, hateful towards groups of people, in breach of copyright, or contains a software virus or the like. You must appoint moderators and must check the content on a regular basis to remove any offending material. If complaints or takedown notices are received by Active Data Online Pty Ltd, your hosted discussion board may be suspended and/or shut down. Depending on the nature of the incident, a warning or notice may or may not be given.
Files: You cannot set up a file server. Your users cannot attach files to posts. This prevents malicious executables and the like from damaging computers.
Pictures: You can set up a picture gallery but all picture files must be PNGs and JPGs and must not exceed 200KB in file size. There is an extra fee if you would like to includes pictures such as picture topics or blogs and statement topics with an attached picture, because of file space and bandwidth. User profile pictures, however, are free. Every member of your hosted community is restricted to 3 user profile pictures.
HTML templates: You can set up html templates and host things such as embedded YouTube videos. You can use external storage services such as Windows Live Sky Drive and embed content into your forums through templates as long you comply with the content guidelines of this service.
Emails: You must not use the service to send spam, phishing attacks, or the like.
Logs: You won't have access to the error log file and blocked IP log file. Active Data Online Pty Ltd will track all errors, if any occur, and will correct the errors within a reasonable period of time.
Database: The database is Microsoft Access. Access has a 2GB limit, and a fairly low concurrent user limit. This means, if your community has become very large, you will have to switch over to SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL or Oracle 10g, and do so on your own Web host. Generally, the running costs will be higher. The concurrency limit of Access means if a lot of people visit your site, every so often some will see a server too busy message asking them to wait for a short while. If you need or you're interested in a more scalable solution with high uptime and performance, you should buy a full licence and run the application using a more powerful database.
Bandwidth: Your hosted discussion board can be shut down as the discretion of Active Data Online Pty Ltd if it uses up too much bandwidth. The reason for this is because this service is designed primarily for new communities. If your community needs a lot of bandwidth and scalability, you should run it elsewhere using a more expensive database and Web server. Normally, for these sorts of cases, you will be given two weeks notice. Needless to say, you can always buy a full licence and continue to run and grow your discussion board elsewhere.
URL: Your discussion board will be hosted within the domain activedataonline.net. Hence your URL will be http://www.activedataonline.net/[username]/. If you would like to use a particular domain then you have to buy a licence and host the application yourself.

Other than these restrictions, you will have access to the full Discussion Board application and you can run your community any way you'd like to.

Essentially, you will given administrator rights to your discussion board. This means you can set up forums, modify forums and views, appoint moderators, moderate content yourself, and so on. However, everything that is configured in the appsettings of the web.config file and in the CSS file will be done by Active Data Online Pty Ltd.

Discussion Board can be configured in several ways. You can switch parts on and off. You can format dates and times. You can specify a list of fonts and colours for your users to choose from when posting content. And more. Configuring all this is considered technical support. Support is included in the set up fee for the first 30 days from the start and incurs a tech support fee per support request thereafter. As part of the support, you can even ask for CSS styling -- ie, if you would like your hosted discussion board to appear in a certain way. And you can ask to add HTML snippets such as google adsense, if you would like to make money through google ads.

These days, many people run online communities not just as a hobby. With the advent of google adsense, many online communities and social networks are now commercial ventures. It should be said that apart from third-party advertising, Discussion Board includes a built in contextual key-phrase ad system, a content subscription system, and a paid posting system -- all with payments managed through the application and PayPal.

For a detailed description of what Discussion Board can do for you, including flash videos of notable features and live online demonstrations, refer to the Discussion Board product page.

Fees

20 USD set up fee, which includes configuration support in the first 30 days

0.25 cents USD per day (approx. 7.50 USD per month)

plus, if applicable

1 USD per day for 100 picture files (max. 200KB per file; PNGs and JPGs only)

plus, if applicable

20 USD per configuration support request after the first 30 days

plus, if applicable

10 USD per late payment

plus, if applicable

A 10% GST on all fees for Australian based customers

NOTES:

1. All payment for the Discussion Board (Hosted) service must be through PayPal. Except for the setup fee, which is upfront, all fees will accrue to your account and you must pay the outstanding balance at the first day of every month, otherwise your account will be suspended and eventually cancelled. You can choose to stop the service at any time. More information on the payments policy is in the terms of use.

2. Every user is entitled to 3 user profile pictures. All picture files must be PNG or JPG and each file must be within 200KB. User profile picture files are not included in the pictures fee.

3. A request to increase the maximum number of pictures for an account will take effect in the current month. A request to decrease the maximum number of pictures for an account will take effect in the next month.

4. If you would like to run a hosted discussion board with a low pictures limit and manually remove old pictures by yourself as administrator to remain under your current limit, you can.

5. You can stop the service at any time by submitting a cancellation request.

Ordering, upgrading and cancelling procedures

A. How to order a new hosted discussion board:

Read the terms of use, especially the section on proper use which describes the restrictions and limitations. If you do not agree with any part of the entire terms of use, you cannot use the service.
You must have a PayPal account. All payments will be done through PayPal invoices.
Go to the online order form, sign in using your Active Data Online pre-sales and customer support discussion board user account, if you already have one; otherwise, register a new account.
Select the option for new account.
Specify an account name, comprising of letters and numbers, of between 5 and 25 characters, all in lower case. eg, "abc123". The account name will be the location of your site, ie, http://www.activedataonline.net/abc123/DB_Index.aspx.
If approved, you will be sent a PayPal invoice for the setup fee.
When you pay the invoice, your new hosted discussion board will be set up for you, normally within 1 business day but sometimes longer. If it takes more than 1 day, the extra days will be subtracted from your next invoice.
When your hosted discussion board is ready, you will be notified via Active Data Online's customer discussion board messenging system.
As a new hosted discussion board customer you have up to 30 days from the time the discussion board is set up for you to submit support requests, which may include configuration changes, style changes, adding html, etc. All requests within this time are free of charge.

B. How to submit a support request to configure an existing hosted discussion board, to change stylesheet elements, or to add html snippets such as google adsense, or the like:

Go to the online order form, sign in using your Active Data Online pre-sales and customer support discussion board user account, if you already have one; otherwise, register a new account.
Select the option for configuration request.
Describe what you would like done and for which account.
You may be asked to provide more information if something needs clarification.
Once the request is in its final form with the precise requirements spelt out, you will be sent an invoice via PayPal for the support fee, if the request is being made after 30 days from the start.
If your request requires payment of a support request fee, when you pay the invoice, your support request will be carried out for you as soon as possible, within a reasonable period of time.
When it is done, you will be notified via Active Data Online's customer discussion board messenging system.

C. How to submit a support request to increase the pictures limit for an existing hosted discussion board:

Go to the online order form, sign in using your Active Data Online pre-sales and customer support discussion board user account, if you already have one; otherwise, register a new account.
Select the option for pictures limit.
Describe what you would like done and for which account.
A request to increase the maximum number of pictures for an account will take effect in the current month and for the next invoice. A request to decrease the maximum number of pictures for an account will take effect in the next month after the next invoice.
When it is processed, you will be notified via Active Data Online's customer discussion board messenging system, and when it is done, you will be notified once again.

D. How to submit a cancellation request for an existing hosted discussion board:

Go to the online order form, sign in using your Active Data Online pre-sales and customer support discussion board user account, if you already have one; otherwise, register a new account.
Select the option for cancelling an account.
State which account you would like to cancel.
When it is done, you will be notified via Active Data Online's customer discussion board messenging system.

Late payment policy

As per the terms of use, all invoice payments must be within 7 full days upon receiving the invoice. After that time, your hosted discussion board will be suspended, and a late payment fee of $10 USD will be attached to your next invoice. 14 full days after the date of the invoice, if payment is still not received, your hosted discussion board and account will be shut down.

If you believe an invoice has been incorrectly calculated, you can ask for it to be checked.