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

[valdeztke]

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!