What Board Software should I use?

[Shiva Star]

I plan to have a message board at a site I'm going to have up someday. I'm trying to decide what software I should use. Should I use software on my website or should I outsource it?

[Darth Wong]

There's no universal correct answer. It depends on your particular needs. Obviously, for my needs and abilities, I think phpBB is a good match. It might not necessarily be the best match for you.

[Manus Celer Dei]

From an administrators point of view I have no clue, but I find phpBB boards much easier to use than most others.

[Shiva Star]

Here's my needs: I need to have a board where extremists, trektards, brainless Neo-cons, Gungrabbers,spammers, generally people who would merit a VI/WTPF would only be able to post to a certain forum (Henceforth referred to as "The Troll Club") forum while the rest of the board would go untarnished. Otherwise it would pretty much be similar to SD.Net. Also Administration has to be easy with automated account pruning (If the users would vote to have that feature).

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

I'm pretty sure phpBB2 allows the former, and while I'm not sure about the latter there are so many phpBB hacks lying around I'm sure something like that exists.

[Fleet Admiral JD]

Personally, I use SMF (www.simplemachines.org) which is by far the best I've ever come across.

Kudos to Aqua at trekdatabase to pointing it out to me

[Rogue 9]

I use phpBB, though I considered Invision for awhile.

For God's sake, do not even consider EzBoard. The thing doesn't even have many of the proper moderator tools, and the security is atrocious, as evidenced by the hack earlier this year that wiped out everything across all boards posted later than April 2003.

[Shiva Star]

I use phpBB, though I considered Invision for awhile.

For God's sake, do not even consider EzBoard. The thing doesn't even have many of the proper moderator tools, and the security is atrocious, as evidenced by the hack earlier this year that wiped out everything across all boards posted later than April 2003.

Oops! Forgot about that incident. Anyway, I'll take that weak software off my list if security is shitty and there's weak moderator tools. Security and the ability to enforce rules is one of my top priorities.

EDIT: How do I remove options from polls, BTW?

[Rogue 9]

You don't. Only mods can alter polls once they've been voted in.

And yeah, EzBoard doesn't even let mods split threads. All you can do is lock, move, or delete.

[Pu-239]

Shit, I need to upgrade phpBB- too lazy because of the mods installed though.