Forum Query

[saintdave]

Apologies if this has been answered before but in my defence this is probably only the second time I have ever ventured into this part of the forums. Whilst the search tool is always available I wouldn’t know what to look for or type to find specifically what I’m after.

 

For a while I have had an interest in making my own forums with the theme a game I’m into or a subject that really interests me and I have had a go of running such forums in the past with the free IPB you can get. Now I’m wondering which is the best free forum boards you can get/use and which is the most up to date in terms of features and things you can do with it and enable your members to do?

 

Help is much appreciated.

[Toadyd]

SMF is a pretty popular choice, i believe that has a great plugin system too meaning you generally don't have to edit much code. They have a thriving community too, and a lot of people would strongly recommend it. Personally i've never really got on too well with SMF, i don't really like using the admin panel - but like i say, some people think its fantastic.

It should be a definite consideration for you.

 

Next up would be phpBB, which has been around... forever.

Recently phpbb3 was finally released which is a massive improvement over phpbb2, aesthetically, in terms of security, and in pretty much every way really. I was never that much of a fan of phpbb but i recently installed phpbb3 for the andolini private forums and its really surprised me how how well thought out and easy to manage it is.

Out of the box there is no plugin system though, so if you wanted to install a mod you generally have to edit a massive lost of files which is time consuming and a bit bewildering if you're not really sure what you're doing.

 

I think there might be some kind of plugin management system which lessens your involvement, but i can't say i've really looked into it.

 

After that theres mybb, bbpress, and a whole host of other offerings, but smf and phpbb are the big leaders in free forum software.

 

If you want to play with the admin side of the software without installing, check out http://www.opensourcecms.com/

 

What do you mean by 'up to date in terms of features and things you can... enable your members to do?'

 

Ideally members should come to your forum to chat about whatever your topic is on, you can get arcades, text based rpgs, virtual shops, virtual pets, blah blah blah... but in my eyes thats all just gimicky crap and a cheap attempt to try and get people to stay.

 

As i think this forum proves, you can have 5 year old seriously out of date (albeit highly modified and expanded over the years) and theres no sign of social networking profiles, the ability to adopt virtual hampsters etc... People come here for the content.

 

As long as you're happy operating the software and are comfortable managing your way around it, and members are comfortable using the forum things for members to do isn't the biggest concern.

 

Content is more important than features really. People are going to find, and stay at your site because its got excellent content on a specific topic that they can't find somewhere else (or can't find to such a standard somewhere else) they might enjoy playing pacman for a few minutes, but there are a million places to do that on the web, it doesn't have to be on your site. Stick to what you're good at.)

[K^2]

SMF would be my pick. It's easy to use and is very well written. Big user base as well, so you'll always have a source of support.