Right, I have got the basics of my aceboard set up, and its all looking pretty whizzy; however, considering that when it gets launched officially, some of the members will be younger, I want to know if it is possible to block certain advertising content? I accept we are unlikely to get a free board without ad's, however some of the links coming up are definitely not appropriate for the people who will be using the board.

The other question I have, is, can an entire board be made unaccessible unless someone has registered? So that none of the forum can be viewed until they are a verified member? I have worked out how to ensure each forum's content can only be viewed by signed in members, but would really prefer to have the whole board closed to guest visitors - hoping that makes sense, if it does, please can you tell me if it is possible!!! The aim of the board I am working on is that it will only be for members of a real life group, and their membership on the forum will be dependent on their being members of the real life group too.

The age range will include children and adults - hence my query about the google links.

Hope you can help,

As far as the ads go you have no control over its content, but having said that, I've noticed that Acebaords google ads are all very decent and G-rated. However, I guess everyone has there own opinion on whats G-rated and whats not.

When you set your forum to "Private" no one can read the posts on your forum unless they are a registered member. You simply go to your "Administration Panel" and scroll down to "Edit/Delete a Forum" and choose which forum you want to modify and then set your forum to "private".

You can also set your forum so only you can manually accept each new membership.

Keep in mind that anyone can access your forums main page where the "Welcome Message" is, but entering the forum topics they would have to be a member.

About the ads, I beleive that some of them are content related. Meaning that the ads that appear on your forum sometimes depends on the content on the forum. If your forum is about cars you'll get more car ads, etc. etc. I've never had any problems with offensive ads, but if you are try changing some of the "questionable" content on your board (if there is any) you might just not get anymore of those ads. Again, I'm not 100% about this, but hopefully it helps you out.

Right, so I cannot make the entire board private? Thats a shame, I have set each forum to be readable only when signed in, and have set membership for manual approval which is fine.

The google content is a big problem, the plan for the board is to be for families, and this will include young readers - at present there is no content whatsoever, apart from a few starter posts which are mainly there for testing purposes... however, the dodgy google ads are still definitely coming up, and I cannot risk them staying there when it is broadcast to our group.

I have asked, or tried to, for deletion of the board - how long does this take? It is hard to work out whether the request has worked as I was taken to a very french screen to request the deletion - and as my school day french is exceptionally rusty....!

many thanks for your replies

if you would like your board deleted please pm me your url of your board, your username and password.

you can make the whole board private.. Just make all the sections private and not visible to anyone who is not logged in.

Many thanks, you have a pm

this is funny... my board is about video games, but because it is called we get ads for... FOG MACHINES!

LOL thats funny! My forum originally started out as a message board alternative for a game site called ItsYourTurn.com after they shut down their message boards, and some of my members came from their. But now its a general discussion forum of various topics for anyone who stumbles across it and is interested in joining, and it also doubles as my websites forum. But, sometimes because I have a "Recipe" section I get weight loss ads trying sell us diet pills..LOL

But actually now, I have a firefox extension that blocks all google ads on websites and a million other type ads, so I only see the ads if I turn off the firefox extension.

You might try submitting your forum in the google search engine database with a discrïption of your site, and it might help the ads on your forum have a little more relevance to your forums actual topics. I have my forum in lots of search engines including google. As a matter of fact, if you put "Runaway Horses Forum" in just about any search engine it will show up at the top of the results page.