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On this episode, Patrick O’Keefe (owner of the iFroggy Network of blogs and communities) rejoins us on phpBB Weekly, this time to talk about his just-released brand new book, Managing Online Forums: Everything You Need to Know to Create and Run Successful Community Discussion Boards. After first talking with Patrick about how and why he wrote the book, we then go chapter by chapter, looking at the various points that he makes in his book and discussing them.

We do highly recommend this book (no, we’re not getting paid to say that) because it covers a lot of important things that prospective community admins should know that you won’t find in any user manual. If you want to find out more about why we’re so excited about this book, check out (no pun intended) this episode.

In addition, we wrap up our listener survey by doing our prize drawing! Winners have been notified by e-mail and should reply to the e-mail in order to receive their prize.

Related links for this episode:
Book Website
Book Press Release
ManagingCommunities.com Blog
CommunityAdmins.com Forums
Douglas’ Review of the Book

Example phpBB 1.4.x Website
eviL<3's MOD for Dealing with Ban Evaders (link coming once David uncovers it!)

phpBB Weekly is a proud member of the Tech Podcast Network. Check them out for other great technology podcasts.

You all may remember two months ago when Patrick O’Keefe joined us to talk about phpBBHacks.com, but he also gave us a teaser of his new book, Managing Online Forums. For those of you who have filled out our listener survey, the top prize in the giveaway is an autographed copy of his new book.

His book is officially launching on April 28th, however he is sending David and myself early review copies of his book, in addition to the autographed copy that we will be giving away. (My copy and the giveaway copy both arrived at my house today, actually.) David and I are going to be reading it over the next few weeks, and I’m personally going to be posting a review on my own blog towards the end of the month. In addition, Patrick will be rejoining us on phpBB Weekly #061 on Saturday, May 10th where we will be covering his book in detail and doing a full review on the show, in addition to giving you guys an opportunity to ask your own questions.

However, that episode will also be the episode where we will do the live drawing from all of the surveys that we have received, so if you want to enter the drawing, you will need to have your survey in no later than one hour before the show starts. We do want to thank everyone that has already completed a survey, because we really value your opinion here at phpBB Weekly and your responses help us to make the show better.

Incidentally, if you’re interested in some more to whet your appetite for Patrick’s book, I highly recommend that you check out this presentation from South By Southwest that Patrick made about his book.

UPDATE: Our listener survey/prize giveaway has now closed. Thanks to everyone who participated! Winners will be drawn and announced live on phpBB Weekly #061 and will receive an e-mail notification to obtain any necessary additional information.

We are launching a special promotion today which gives us the opportunity to learn more about what you think of this show, and gives you the opportunity to possibly win some great phpBB prizes.

We’re going to be having a giveaway drawing on phpBB Weekly sometime in April or May. The top prize will be a copy of Patrick O’Keefe’s new book, Managing Online Forums. We will also have a few additional prizes available, including Douglas’ Conquering Olympus Bertie. Patrick will be joining us again for an episode of phpBB Weekly in April or May, around the time that his book comes out, and on that episode we will be drawing the winning names.

The way to enter is to participate in our listener survey. The eight-question survey asks you about how you found phpBB Weekly, how you listen to phpBB Weekly, and what you think about the show. Your responses will help us to better understand the expectations of our audience and make our show better for you. The end of the survey will ask you to supply your valid name and e-mail address as the entry to the drawing, but if you don’t want to enter the drawing, we hope you’ll complete the survey anyway.

The survey is hosted at two locations because each one has a maximum of 100 responses. Both surveys are identical, so please just fill out one–if one of them has had the maximum responses, choose the other one. We regret that we can only accept the first 200 responses to the survey, because we would have to pay these survey hosts in order accept more responses than that. Please only fill out one survey; multiple entries will be disqualified.

So, go ahead and Fill out the Survey!

RULES: Only one entry per person; multiple entries will result in you being disqualified. Entries are only valid when the survey has been completed in its entirety. E-mail addresses must be valid or the entry will be disqualified; if you win a prize, you will be required to confirm your e-mail address before you receive it. We will continue to receive responses to our listener survey after the drawing (unless the 200 response maximum is reached), but to qualify for the drawing, your response must be completed by 11 AM EDT (1500 UTC) of the date of the live drawing, which will be announced at least a week ahead of time. Winners outside of the continental United States or Canada might be asked to assist with shipping charges, depending on the prize that they win. These rules only pertain to the giveaway drawing; you do not need to supply your name or e-mail address if you do not wish to be entered in the drawing. The giveaway drawing is not open to any person who is a phpBB team member on or after March 8th, 2008, nor to the family members of the phpBB Weekly co-hosts (although they’re certainly welcome to complete a survey anyway).

UPDATE: We will be doing the drawing during phpBB Weekly #061, which will be on Saturday, May 10th, 2008. The deadline to qualify for the drawing will be one hour before that episode begins.

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Today marks a very special milestone for phpBB Weekly (for any podcast, actually): our fiftieth episode! To celebrate, we bring you an interview that Douglas has been looking forward to for ten months. Patrick O’Keefe, the administrator of the iFroggy Network and phpBBHacks.com, joins us for a very interesting discussion.

During the interview, Patrick talks about phpBBHacks.com, including how and why it was started back in 2001 (yeah, it predates phpBB2!), and how it has grown and expanded in its seven year history. We also take an unbiased look at some of the differences between phpBBHacks.com and the phpBB.com MOD Database, and how phpBBHacks.com has become one of the most popular third-party phpBB sites on the internet (well, according to Google, anyway). He also talks a bit about his two websites for community administrators: ManagingCommunities.com (a blog) and CommunityAdmins.com (a community for communities). Finally, he tells us about his new book, Managing Online Forums, coming in late April. We will be reviewing his book on a future episode of phpBB Weekly, as well as giving away a copy! Stay tuned for more details on that.

David also answers a question in the TalkShoe chat room revealing that Ascraeus will feature the much-requested RSS Syndication feature built-in. We briefly talk about the significance of that feature addition.

And at the end of the show, David gives us his exclusive ski tips, based on the bloopers he endured earlier this week.

The MOD of the Week is SEO MOD for phpBB3 by Handyman`, and the Style of the Week is Macinscott 3 by Scott Stubblefield.

phpBB Weekly is a proud member of the Tech Podcast Network. Check them out for other great technology podcasts.

February, the shortest month of the year, is almost upon us, and so I wanted to fill you in on our plans for the next couple of episodes here on phpBB Weekly to give you a heads up on what we’re going to be covering.

This Saturday, February 2nd, is not only Groundhog Day (my most favorite obscure holiday of the year), but David has promised me that he will be back on phpBB Weekly! Also, now that the fanfare of the Olympus release has calmed down a bit, we are going to do our first phpBB tutorial in about two months. We will be focusing on BBCode. I have myself done some research on the history and purpose of BBCode, along with a bit on how BBCode worked in phpBB2. Then David will fill us in on what’s new with BBCode in phpBB3, including an overview of how to use the Custom BBCode maker in phpBB3, and we’ll see if it’s possible for us to get some more info on what to expect from the brand new BBCode system coming in phpBB 3.2. Also, we’re inviting anyone who wants to share your favorite custom BBCode syntax with us, which we’ll highlight to share some examples of custom BBCodes.

Next Saturday, February 9th, we will be celebrating the fiftieth episode of phpBB Weekly–a significant milestone for most podcasts to celebrate. So, what’s the best way for us to celebrate a significant milestone? Why, by featuring a special guest, of course! For what is sure to be an interesting discussion, we will be inviting Patrick O’Keefe, administrator of phpBBHacks.com, to join us to talk a bit about phpBBHacks.com, including how and why it was formed and where it is today. We will probably also have a friendly debate with David as we discuss the differences behind phpBBHacks.com and the phpBB.com MODs Database, and the differing philosophies behind those differences. Patrick will also be telling us a bit about his new book, coming out in April. It’s definitely sure to be a very interesting episode of phpBB Weekly and one that I’ve been looking forward to putting on for a long time.

I am going to be completely away from my computer (and thus, the internet) from February 14-23. Because of this, we are not going to be doing a phpBB Weekly episode on February 16, and we might not do a phpBB Weekly episode on February 23 (up to David whether he wants to do one solo or not). Furthermore, David will also be doing a solo episode on March 1, because I have to take a test that morning (aren’t SATs fun?). So, similar to how David just missed a month of shows, I’m going to be missing about a month’s worth of shows beginning in mid-February.

But anyway, that pretty much covers what we have planned so far for our next few episodes. I hope that you’ll be able to join us live on Saturdays at 12 PM EST (1700 UTC), or else continue to subscribe to the podcast version which I will usually release within 36 hours of the live episode. Have a good February, and stay healthy!