Hello,

I am trying to find the best solution that integrates a
messageboard/forum, blog and journal.

We are running a campaign where we are recruiting 200 people to test
out a new diet.  We want to create a forum where each of these dieters
can post messages to each other.  We also want to allow them to create
their own profiles and to record their own journals of daily activity
-- just free form comments.

Finally, we want to be able to interact with them using a master blog
to which we'll post comments and they can respond if necessary.

The ideal solution we are looking for is one where everything is
integrated rather than having to stitch together separate point
solutions.

Thanks.

Marc

My guild on world of warcraft (http://www.black-tide.com/) uses <a
href="http://phpnuke.org/" target=_blank>PHP Nuke</a> with mods all in
one solution to have a forum/pictures/files and a personal journal for
each user.

Too many choices is more likely to be a problem than not enough.  It
may help if you can specify some preferences or constraints or other
additional information about what defines "best" for you.  For
example, how much time and technical expertise are available to set
the system up?  Do you have any platform preferences or constraints,
such as hardware, operating system, web server, or database?  Is there
a limit on how much you can spend?  Would you want to buy services to
install the system and make it work?  Do you care if it's implemented
in PHP or some other language?

Best for me would be the following:

- uses open source code (but open to paid alternative if it's worth it)
- runs on a FreeBSD, MySQL, PHP platform
- very customizable for a techie who will be doing the install

The only thing I can suggest for this is MyBB (My Bulletin Board)

MyBB has:

A forum / messageboard for posting messages to each other (very easy to manage)
A "Portal" feature which is a page that shows the content of each
thread in a particluar forum section (i.e a blog)

and if you installed the "Custom Page" Mod (which takes a few
minutes), you have your journal pages. Each member is allowed to
create and edit their own custom page which can be used as a journal.

If you want an example go to my forum:
http://www.drpoodle.com/forum/mybb

The main page is the portal (blog) which i modded to become the main
page. It displays the topic posts from the "News" section of the
forum, and people are able to reply.

The Custom page is located at: http://www.drpoodle.com/forum/mybb/custompage.php
and each member can create 1 page (this can be changed).


If you want my help installing and modding MyBB for you then please
contact me (adrianhayter@gmail.com).

if you're looking for something along those lines, thought it would be
slightly overkill I think Xoops might be an option for you
(www.xoops.org). Combining the CBB module with the PopupNBlog modules
would enable you to have both forums and blogs combined. Not to
mention any other modules that you might find interesting. Basically
what you're looking for is a good CMS that will combine everything
into one simple (ha) system.

If you're looking for other alternatives, you can also check out
www.opensourcms.com and see what listings they ahve for other cms' and
their ratings. You also have the option to test out the admin section
on demo servers they've setup. The thing to look at are the modules
available for a cms before you even begin to consider it as an option.
From there, they're typically pretty easy to modify with some
knowledge of php.

A really great CMS would be SPIP if you can customize it and
additionnaly punbb or phpbb for a forum, spip is really powerful :)
Try it! :]

www.spip.net