New Mile - A Free General Discussion Forum

Submitted by: Shanetim

Hi, I'm here to talk to you about a forum called New Mile. Now, New Mile isn't your average, cheesy forum that has a shop, arcade, gallery and a shout box. We have no modifications and we are a nice friendly community with a variety of different boards to post in.

We do have a Role Playing board where you can choose a character and start your quest. You can then interact with other quests and become engaged with up to 20 people's quests! We have an area for gaming discussion, IT, graphics, suggestions, introductions, news, internet and websites, music and much more!

There's bound to be something that will interest you in New Mile. We have a very interesting theme and if you register, you can choose from about 20. Of course, we have a calendar, PM system and buddy lists. We constantly have events and competitions which give you the chance to earn NM Fame.

NM Fame is a system that introduced early in March and will remain for years to come. You can earn NM Fame each time you have the most Contest Points at the end of a contest. Contests may last a month or even a week! The one with the most fame at the end of March, June, September and December get an ad for their site on New Mile.

We have a steady average posts per day which is increasing healthily. We are always happy to get a new member and we'll welcome you with open arms. We're also giving you the opportunity to buy advertising space on New Mile. If you wish to learn more, go to New Mile and look around and it will soon become clear.

New Mile is just a General Discussion Forum that doesn't tolerate any spam and we appreciate active members and quality posts. Although you don't always need to make a post with over 100 words, we still accept posts that have 10 words as long as they aren't off-topic. We have made a brand new homepage, it looks great and will be updated regularly.

How did New Mile start?

One day, the owner of New Mile (Shane) decided that he wanted to make a forum and his Dad (Matt) said, well, you'll have to find a host. So Shane did a quick search and registered his forum at the first host he could find. The forum was very limited and suffered due to spam by someone who went to the same school. That caused the downfall of that forum.

Shane then decided to switch to the IPB hosting from the same host. This was better but still lacked good content and had ads and other turn-offs. It hit 200 posts and died. Shane thought, "hmmm..." So he found a new host that his friend from school (StopThatGuy) was currently using. It was IPB but that also had ads and was very restrictive in the way of modifications and loading times. The modifications slowed it down.

That forum was about gaming and it was doing alright until it started dying, this was at a high of about 1,500 posts. Shane still couldn't find a host he was happy with, when one day while on his host's support forum, saw a link in someone's signature to a better hosting site. This one was still IPB but had a store, quiz, RPG and many more options. The only thing was it was full of ads and too slow. The host's server also became too busy for about 5-10 hours every day.

Shane downloaded phpBB and thought "what do I do now?" so he tried uploading it into an SQL Query area of phpMyAdmin. That was silly and it didn't work. After a few days, he noticed the File Manager and tried uploading the files there. He made a database and installed the brand new forum, this was fantastic because it worked for him. Shane was so happy that he nearly cried.

Shane asked his Dad if he could get a domain. His Dad said alright. Shane's mate from school sent him a link to a good place to get a cheap and reliable domain. So that was that and the domain was purchased with a 1 day pending period. Shane didn't know how to use the domain. He didn't know how to set it up properly. After many attempts he gave up and noticed that his host added a domain manager area and after looking at the Name Servers, it all made sense and before long, the site was all set up with the domain.

The site hit a high of about 2,000 posts before a critical database error, a kind guy known a ShadeReaperX, helped Shane mend the database. There was still a problem, the PM system wouldn't work. So Shane had to re-install the forum and this time, has no modifications and just loads of themes. He knows now to make regular back-ups in case of another database error.