I've read you guys (Sledge too) discuss in a thread about the pitfalls of PhpBB and why VBulletin rocks over the former.

I wanted to know what all goes into making a forum, what does it take ? What is the best platform. It's basically for a pal's music-based website. How easy would it be to maintain and the works.

There are plenty of formats to choose from but among the most popular I would say is 3 formats

Ikonboard
VBulletin
phpBB

Im not sure on vB, youll have to ask sledge. im not sure its free or not, but I know phpBB is free and Ikon has a free version and a paid version.

I have personally worked with Ikonboard, and for a begginer its probably the most easy to set up and get running, and also the easist to skin and customize. It also has a really nice control panel, better than phpBBs in my opinion. Sledge has told me that Ikon has many security loops in it however. I dunno what or how and how dangerous it would be to your website as a hole, maybe sledge can answer that.

There is also UBB (ultimate bulliten board) but its pretty pricey, and i dont know how they are doing these days, but it use to be a bandwidth hog.

i don't recommend phpBB, its actually pissed me off with its multiple security holes.

http://forums.ancientclan.com/showthread.php?t=3064

for free, i'd recommend SMF which is mentioned in the above link. ^_^ i don't have any experience with SMF as of yet, but many ppl have recommended it as a good replacement for phpBB.

when i was shopping around for a new forum, i weighed the pros and cons of all and ikon had some issues with security at the time. needless to say, i had vB on my mind for a while at that point and their community seemed quite knowledgeable. theres no free version of vBulletin and it does cost a decent chunk. $150+ for a license.

as for opening a forum. its simple, download the script and install it on your site. or if you have Ancient Clan hosting, all you have to do is log into your cpanel and click your mouse on "auto-install" for SMF and you're done. :p

customizing a forum is the tricky part. styles, themes, graphics, forum permissions, ranks, etc. its all quite time consuming regardless of the forum software you use. vbulletin's themes can be completely customized via the admin control panel, while phpBB requires you to physically copy and alter multiple theme files. both types take a bit of getting used to.

once everything is done tho, running a forum is only as difficult as the amount of members you have. (locking topics, banning, etc., etc.) other than that, the only maintenance you'd have to worry about it is upgrading your forum software to keep up to date with bug fixes.

$ 150+ 0_o is like over 6,750 bucks ! Wow .... but if it's worth it, then what the heck. I tried looking for Ikonboard and their homepage ikonboard.com doesn't exist 0_o ... but I saw a sample or two from other googlesearch places and it looks cool. My pal's choice is tipped towards phpBB because it's widely used and for the most part, it's free. SMF looks snazzy too, I showed it to him and he's just too grumpy to choose anything else. Cpanel, you've to pay for right ? Like VB ?

That is weird it exists for me 0-o

Skinning on ikonboard isnt really time consuming unless you are making your own, otherwise you can find some pretty nifty skins, download them and upload them to the skin folder and then just extract them via the ikonboard control panel, simple as that... most of the time. Sometimes skin has bugs in them and cause forum errors. Now the hacks are a different story thoes are more tricky, but thats only if you want to fancy shmancy your forum with useless jingles.

I have to agree with sledge tho, phpBB is by far the worst choice of them all. Their updates take a million years to come out if ever also X'D

Cpanel, you've to pay for right ? Like VB ?

cpanel is the software that runs Ancient Clan's hosting. every hosted site gets their own cpanel that lets them do all sorts of things like auto-install phpBB or SMF, or make new email accounts, etc.

http://www.ancientclan.com/content/view/20/50/

the site that i do for the local gaming center is hosted on AC, we've got xoops installed....i found a mod for Invision Power Board that we're using right now...granted, it's the 'hacked' version to work with xoops, but i kinda like it....the control panel is easy to use and it does a good job with users....it just doesn't like incorperating with xoops all the time...><....

Scrap everythign I said about Ikonboard, I ment invision power board. google it. Thats what I have worked with. I dunno why i was thinking of Ikon

lol, i just saw noticed you said that. yeah, the developers that made ikonboard quite and then made invision power board. last i heard they didn't have a free version anymore tho.

Starts at $ 10 onwards a month ! Dunno if my bud will like to spend that kind of money and he refuses my help *grumblefumblegojangle* He told me last night that phpBB has been his fix for 3 years of visiting the internet and that he mostly wants that. I told him about your suggestions and everything but he wasn't up to it. I'm such a sorryass marketer damnit -_- *and so, the MBA runs off in embarrassment, all teary-eyed*

we used phpBB for about 1-2 years. i never had any problems with it, but the constant updating and lack of new versions killed me. -_- if your friend decides on it, tell him to make sure to check phpbb's site at least once or twice a month for security fixes. hopefully their new version phpBB 2.2 will come out and fix alot of issues.. but then again, i waited for the elusive "phpBB 2.2" for over 1 1/2 years before i switched to vbulletin.. here it is a whole other year later and phpBB 2.2 still hasn't come out. x_x;

Sledgstone, I have to agree with you. I been using PhpBB for 4 years and it gets to be a pain in the ass becuse of all the updates and if your forum is already moded up, it makes it that much more time consuming to apply each new line of code.

I can't wait till V2.2 or 3.0 comes out. There beta seems good but...who knows might turn out to be a security hole frenzy.