How hard is it to make a Forum?

[Davey Crocket]

I know how to build simlple websites and just wanted to know how hard it would be to build a forum on a website?

Can anyone suggest some good places to find more information on Free forum scripts?

Thanks

[exaro]

A friend of mine built a nice one from scratch. You're gonna need to reed up on PHP/MySQL and about how to make a user system. The rest is just about inserting, and pulling out data and how it links together. There aren't many tutorials around that will get exactly what you're looking for though. Look into some plain guestbook tutorials than add a user system with it. You can find seperate guides for both but not many at all for regular "forums"

[Smyrl]

As past user I do not recommend phpbb. It is too easily spammed.

Making is the easy part. Populating is the hard part.

Good luck,
Shannon

[Connect]

What about using vBulletin? - like this forum, is it easy to setup?

[Blogmaster]

I would not use anything but vBulletin.

[minstrel]

As past user I do not recommend phpbb. It is too easily spammed.
It's no easier to spam than vBulletin, Shannon. The past half dozen versions (at least) have had visual confirmation (captcha) which prevents automated registrations. And once a human registers, it doesn't matter what software is being used, the human can start spamming away.

phpBB is perfectly fine software as long as you are willing to keep it up to date.

Making is the easy part. Populating is the hard part.
Exactly. Check out these links for suggestions on getting a forum going:

http://www.theforumzone.com/forums/index.php?

http://www.vbwebmaster.com/forums/

[802networks]

I have been using phpBB for about a year now. I must admit, for something that is free, you can't go wrong! I have been hacked twice using very cheap methods. Both time recovery was as simple as deleting a record in MySQL. Both times were also my own fault for not upgrading (I was 3-4 versions behind at the time). What I like about it is that it's very easy to work with and the add-ons are amazing. I also find it's very quick (I have over 27,000 posts on my one site) and it still runs blazingly fast.

I also love VBulletin. But it's not free.