Best free forum hosting?

[Deleted User]

first off, forgive me if this is the wrong section

. I do think it belongs in the off-topic place, but then again, it's about computers.

Okay, what I am going to do is make a forum, for my school. In that forum, I'll design subforums (Sections?) for each class, sports, and all that.

Now, in each subforum (Section?), there are other mini forums, such as Homework, Announcement, and all that.

For an example of what it should look like, see teh Gbatemp's forums. Sections, and subforums under it.

Also, I think it would be good if the forum can be customized, from page layouts to buttons. But hey, if beggers can't be choosers, I'll go with pre-set layouts, at least.

I think I can negotiate with the headmistress of my school for Invision Power Board and domain name funding, but for now, I think I'll stay with free.

In a nutshell, I need a free forum hoster that does these:

NEEDED:
1)Makings of subforum/section and little forums below it
2)Customizable graphic
3)More than 50 (A lot, but, hey.... yea) little forums (Which is under teh subforum/section)
4)Ranking system based on Post Count. (To make sure that students will race to the top)

PREFERRED:
1)Unlimited number of everything (Posts, Threads, Mods, Admins, etc)
2)Completely customizable graphic
3)Threads will not expire (Well, maybe in about a year or so, then it starts auto-delete old threads)

Thanks

 

[arctic_flame]

Ask your school to host it on their website/intranet/extranet.
If they say no, they don't want a forum, find something else to do.


To clarify, schools could freak out if an unchecked, student-run forum was started. My school handed out punishments to participants of a certain facebook group that were posting things that happened on a school-run event.
Make sure you have permission to do anything before you do it.

 

[DarkRey]

(im too lazy to type)

http://www.freeforums.org/

FreeForums.org's free forum hosting offers more features with less annoyances than any other free forum hosts on the web. We utilize lightning fast, performance-optimized servers connected worldwide by some of the leading bandwidth providers. The result is the fastest, most customizable free forum hosting solution available.

features:
http://www.freeforums.org/features.php

it can do everything you asked

 

[UltraMagnus]

To clarify, schools could freak out if an unchecked, student-run forum was started. My school handed out punishments to participants of a certain facebook group that were posting things that happened on a school-run event.
Make sure you have permission to do anything before you do it.

well, they had no right to do that, i should point out, even kids have freedom of speech

 

[notnarb]

I'll throw up a bid for proboards

 

[Mr.Mister]

PHPBB3 Now.

Go, never look back at any other free forum host ever.

 

[Diablo1123]

phpBB3 sounds good for what you need, find an old computer at the school, and set up it up as a webhost. Better as you can't always trust the school internet to be working, especially at my school.

Then just mess around with either some DNS on the routers or just tell people to memorize the IP.

 

[Kurisuellegarden]

I used freeforums.com for a free forum! =]

I now use zymic.com because it's a free server but it's just now recovering from a giant hack so...yeah. =] Some issues for now but it's the perfect host if you want some control over how the forum looks and runs!

 

[strata8]

I'd use http://forumotion.com for phpBB3/phpBB2/punBB boards, and http://ipbfree.com for IPB (It has a lot of features and mods that the others don't have).

I would also suggest trying http://zetaboards.com. It's like a custom edition of IPB (built from the ground up) by the people who host InvisionFree. In my opinion, it blows IPB 1.3 (most free forums use this or lower) out of the water, but that's just my personal preference

 

[Mangofett]

http://www.uni.cc/site/home.php - make a uni.cc domain name for easy access to the forum.

http://www.000webhost.com/ - make an account, with the uni.cc domain. Update DNS servers.

Use fantastico to install any forum you want.

 

[Vilainspike]

I'd use http://forumotion.com for phpBB3/phpBB2/punBB boards, and http://ipbfree.com for IPB (It has a lot of features and mods that the others don't have).

I would also suggest trying http://zetaboards.com. It's like a custom edition of IPB (built from the ground up) by the people who host InvisionFree. In my opinion, it blows IPB 1.3 (most free forums use this or lower) out of the water, but that's just my personal preference

http://forumotion.com have now got IPB, so i'd recommend them for any forum versions hands down