Heya everyone. I'm looking to set up an online bulletin board, and just wanted to get some thoughts on what you guys thought was best.

Main things I'm looking for are:
1. Ease of use (graphics aren't necessary, just the posting)
2. Non-registered posting, if posible (Being able to post without signing up for an account)
3. Free!

I have a webserver that I could probably host on... but I'm imagining that it might take a lot of space, especially for archives and such. Plus it's running on the school LAN, so I'm not sure if I could get permissions for that.

Any thoughts?

Also, on a completely different topic, I've been working on a blogger site (http://bloggerwestmoor.blogspot.com) , and I was wondering if anyone knew how to add a link to a post's author's profile, on the author's name.

On the page, for example, clicking on "by Nathan Yan" would ideally lead to Nathan Yan's profile page. And the same for any other user. Been playing around with the template, but haven't been able to figure it out.

phpBB for your forums. free, free, free.

as for the link, i don't think you can. it's pulling your profile data with variables from a script as far as i can tell. you can't change that.

You need to AVOID PHPBB at all costs.

PHPBB is HIGHLY insecure, and its slow as hell. It's one of the reasons Brian didn't pick it for Massassi.

Now the Simple Machines forum is really good. They have much higher security standards, and it is much faster.

Plus it has plenty of neat features that PHPBB doesn't.

http://www.simplemachines.org/

Get it, and enjoy. (It's what Never-ending Story Illustrated uses for it's forum BTW)

And yes, it has non-registered posting, and its free.

Yep, simplemachines rocks.

2 questions.

1. does a forum like mine for example (and his i assume) need to be wholly secure?
2. does secure mean 'featureless'?

Wasn't the defacement of massassi possible through a security hole in vBulletin?

You just need to run recent versions of whatever software you are using. AFAIK there are no known exploits in the latest version of PHPBB.

Edit: And yes, it should be secure. It's one thing if your site is only being defaced. It's another if your server is being used to send spam or anything similar.

[QUOTE=Darth Evad]2 questions.

1. does a forum like mine for example (and his i assume) need to be wholly secure?
2. does secure mean 'featureless'?

[/QUOTE]


A. Yes. Nearly every exploit in PHPBB allowed a hacker to have near-to-full control of the system, including formatting the hard drive. In other words, bye bye website. Or even worse, your server ends up being used as a launching point for an attack on ANOTHER server.
B. Absolutely not. Simple Machines is much more secure, and it has MORE features than PHPBB.

This is why I required you to update to the latest version before you moved to my system, also. There are way too many security issues noted with PHPBB. In addition, there IS a current exploit even with the latest PHPBB, although it is minor: http://secunia.com/advisories/16868/

For the complete list of PHPBB's horrible security history, go here: http://secunia.com/product/463/

And as for Simple Machines? They have had 2 exploits in their entire lifetime. All of which are now taken care of. http://secunia.com/product/5285/

Tally up another vote for Simple Machines. It really kicks ***, it is very nice forum software.

Hmm simple machines server is down right now :p

But I'll check it out. So is Simple Machines just a software package, that runs off my server, or do they have their own servers. It's sounding like the latter from you guys' post, but Google's cached version of the Simple Machines doesn't look like it has anything where I can register.

Also, anybody have a link to their forum that I could take a look at?

Simple Machines, like PHPBBB runs from your own server.

You realize that Simple Machines is just a renamed YaBBSE?

phpBB is the first non-sponsored result I get when I type "forum software" into google, so it must be the best.

Actually. simplemachines is a completley re-written from scratch piece of forum software by the same people who made YaBBSE. And what's wrong with that? YaBBSE was also far superior to phpBB.

Not renamed, completely redone.

And just because its the most popular, does NOT make it the best. *cough* Windows *cough*

Hrmm so what would I need to run simple machines. Will IIS do fine? Also, how much hard drive space does this take? Is speed an issue? I think our school district has a 10 mbps connection? But maybe only 1.5 mbps goes to our school (I'll have to check these number).

Also, how about forum hosts? I've been looking at this place called InvisionFree?

That connection should be sufficient. You wont need more than 5mb of space but keep in mind that every post will take up some space. If you cant host it yourself you can use a service like http://www.smfforfree.com/

[url]www.spreebb.com[/url] is free.

It rocks. And is fully customizeable, with a b****in' admin control panel.

Well, maybe not b****in', but dang good, and you can select which features you want enabled. And there's a lot. And you can add custom fields for whatever. I don't know what all it can do yet because I don't need a lot of what they gave me. (yet)

The only restriction is that you have to leave the google ads in place and the copyright stuff at the bottom. Sorta like the stuff at the bottom of massassi's forums.

Also, the smilies have white edges, like this: :em321:
So if you change your background color to something darker, it's going to show up. But then again, you can replace the smilies with your own, so yay!

For custom graphics on buttons and stuff, you have to have a seperate imaging host. Smiley images upload directly, you don't need a seperate host.

When you sign up, the forum will be something like http://whatever.spreebb.com

heh, it looks like spreeBB is the exact same as invision, no?

Do you know if there are any differences?

Yeah, whoops. It is Invision. Or powered by it. Or something.

Go for phpbb 3. The download for the latest version is working fine and by far it would be best out of vbullitin and IPB. Its free and has like tons of modifications. There are skins and such too for your use.
Demo : forum hosting

I really don't recommend phpbb. Just because there are no known holes right now doesn't mean they don't exist. The thing is, people find an exploit then make a bot to search for versions of phpbb using google or whatever, and then mess with you from there. It doesn't matter if you keep up to date with the latest patches, they still get you (speaking from experience here - it happened multiple times).

NECROMANCE LIKE WHOA:omg::omg::omg: