Extreme newbie here :) ....but so lost as well...
 

I am new to the "building" of forums, but not of being on them :)

I started to build a forum with a friend of mine using phpbb2 and EZ portal and well he was called down to Cuba for a mission.

Now its just me and I cant even BEGIN to know where to start.

I have decided on what I want the site to do, look like, and what CMS I want to use. I just need a little direction from the experts--> YOU!

Thanks for answering all my crazy questions and I hope once I've figured it out ... I will be purchasing my lifetime vbulletin lisc.

Ok here goes...

the site name is: www.americaoutloud.org

Its a small, well not so small group of young (20-40) political/hip/new age/middle of the road minded/teed off/concered with community people and I have decided to create a forum, not just any forum though i want a totally kick butt 40,000 user forum!

like I said at first I was going to go with phpBB2 but have learned from speaking to a few people that well I would be kicking myself in the butt 6 months from now once the site really grew.

What I would like is something similar to www.pdaphonehome.com or www.corvetteforum.com both are very nice sites

Here come the questions:

What are those sites running? Just vbulletin and really tweaked, vbadvanced, html, etc.

Could someone new to the forum, SQL, php world figure out something like this or should I look to get a pro to tackle it and leave me a decent admin application?

I dont really want the ability to write and alter in script just yet or even a very CRAZY portal. Just for now something similar to www.politicalcrossfire.com ...ya know a few news blocks with pics and comments that link back to the forum, the meat and potatoes of the site :)

What would you recommend?

I do apologize but I dont want you to think i am hunting for someone to do my site, thats not the case. Instead I want your advice on my best route, even if it means having someone else do it and paying them to teach me what I need to know to slowly learn with small script mods like changing colors adding blocks etc.

Thank you for all your advice and help!

valdeztke,

You are currently showing up as unlicensed. To be able to download hacks and/or receive support here at vBulletin.org, we ask you to please click here (vB-germany users click here) and enter your email address, to show us that you are licensed.

You will need to use your customer number and password (which will be in the email you got when you paid for your license) to access that page. Please note that your email is case sensitive. The update of your account may take up to one hour.

Thank you.

http://www.pdaphonehome.com/ is using a modified vBAdvanced

http://www.corvetteforum.com/ is using a custom solution

http://www.politicalcrossfire.com/ is using phpbb


The most popular portal is vBAdvanced.

Thanks Peter.
:)

Christian sorry about that. If I had purchsed vBulleting yet I would have registered my lisc :) but being in the PreSales forum. I didnt know it was a requirement? :hurt:

It's not a requirement in the Pre-Sales forum, this was in another forum when David replied ;) Kerry-Anne (peterska2) moved it before replying. :)

Thank you for the info Paul.


kerri-anne emailed me last night :)

Just an update I did get my site up and running Kerri Anne was very helpful :)

Its off to a good start thus far and just wanted to say thanks to those that helped me choose the right software for the job. I couldnt be happier! www.americaoutloud.org