Simple Machines

[Gaspar]

Good.  I like Simple Machines Forums. 

It's going to take some time for some folks to get used to though.

[sgrizzle]

Other than having to find where my old trusty "active topics" is now (top right-hand corner, "show unread posts since last visit") it's pretty straightforward for the simple stuff. I saw CF is already doing some fancy text work I'll have to figure out.

[Hoss]

It's a good software for a forum.  I used it almost exclusively on most of my websites for years.

[cannon_fodder]

It's a good software for a forum.  I used it almost exclusively on most of my websites for years.

Fix your signature, slacker!
(haven't checked mine yet)

THIS JUST IN. . .                                                                         Biker Fox is a strange person.

[Hoss]

Fix your signature, slacker!
(haven't checked mine yet)

THIS JUST IN. . .                                                                         Biker Fox is a strange person.

fix yours!   

[nathanm]

Good.  I like Simple Machines Forums. 

It's going to take some time for some folks to get used to though.

Funny. While I consider it a significant improvement, it's still weak sauce.

I'd have been more than happy to buy TN a vB license. (although other than the constant security issues, I like phpBB just as well as vB, and the price is much better)

I can see that the shiny things, like the ticker, are already being abused to no end. :p

[Admin]

We bought vbulletin and tried converting to it (test site here: http://www.thetulsaforum.com/forum/) however we were looking at fairly staggering loss of data during conversion due to the fact Snitz was running in Microsoft Access. Also, vbulletin wasn't gaining us much in features and costs $160/yr. They also have CONSTANT updates.

I looked at PHPbb when I ended up going with SMF. They were close but in the end neither had any major advantages over the other and the people who were handling the tech side had more SMF experience than PHPbb.

Anything, even the ticker, can be disabled.

[Neptune]

testtest
testtest
testtest
testtest

test

[Hoss]

We bought vbulletin and tried converting to it (test site here: http://www.thetulsaforum.com/forum/) however we were looking at fairly staggering loss of data during conversion due to the fact Snitz was running in Microsoft Access. Also, vbulletin wasn't gaining us much in features and costs $160/yr. They also have CONSTANT updates.

I looked at PHPbb when I ended up going with SMF. They were close but in the end neither had any major advantages over the other and the people who were handling the tech side had more SMF experience than PHPbb.

Anything, even the ticker, can be disabled.

For me, phpBB and SMF are THE forum software.  vBulletin has a lot of snazzy features, but for $160/yr and their constant updates, no thanks.  The website I run now costs me $96 a year (and yes, that's unlimited storage/bandwidth, but on a shared box) so I couldn't see spending more on forum software than my site cost.  Plus my traffic is probably fractional of what this site receives.

[nathanm]

We bought vbulletin and tried converting to it (test site here: http://www.thetulsaforum.com/forum/) however we were looking at fairly staggering loss of data during conversion due to the fact Snitz was running in Microsoft Access. Also, vbulletin wasn't gaining us much in features and costs $160/yr. They also have CONSTANT updates.

I looked at PHPbb when I ended up going with SMF. They were close but in the end neither had any major advantages over the other and the people who were handling the tech side had more SMF experience than PHPbb.

Anything, even the ticker, can be disabled.

Might it be possible to get some alternate skins installed? I like this one about as much as I like the default phpBB3 skin, which is to say not much.

SMF isn't all that bad, though, I'm just used to phpBB and vB. (and I agree that the vB licensing is silly, but I still have some unnatural attraction to it, perhaps from using too many vB forums) It's come a long way in the last few years. The first SMF I used was just crap compared to even phpBB. This one is better, although there seem to still be almost no customization options in the user profiles, which makes me a little sad.

Really, though, the best forum software out there is the custom deal they run over at dslreports.

Edited to correct phpBB version number

And hmm..you can't use a small font size, apparently.

[godboko71]

SMF 1.1.8 is pretty close to matching vB and matches and in some areas is better then phpBB, if there are plans to move to SMF 2.0.0 once it goes gold, the forum will have almost all the features of vB minus the social bloat that vB has.

Either way I have to say I like the choice for forum software.