I am planning a site for Indians, Pakistanis & Bangladeshis. Ofcourse, there will be fierce discussions. I need a script (forum/social networking/community )which highlights such discussions & in which moderating content is easy. Any suggestions ?
For discussions, it would be better as a forum (like DP) rather than a social networking thing (like myspace). If so, then something like PHPBB (free open source script) maybe. No experience with forum scripts so couldn't tell you which one is the best.
If you want a quality message board community I would suggest vBulletin. It is the number one Forum software in the industry-and for good reason. It is not free, but worth the price of a license. I'd provide a live link, but as newbie scum, I am not permitted vbulletin.com Wowbb isn't a bad message board option either. Using freeware for a forum community is a bit cheesy. The features and aesthetics of sites using such software are, for me, not very appealing and suggest the site's facilitators are not very serious or invested in their project or their community. Best of luck. -C.
You don't think SMF is good, you know it! Many people will suggest phpBB (which is a steaming pile of garbage) and vBulletin (which while good, does have a few issues that I'm not comfortable dealing with). One of the main things I love about SMF is the fact that the design (what the browser gets) is completely separated from the logic (database calls, and so forth). I haven't used vBulletin, but I have heard that the stylesheets in the themes are called from the database - which is NOT a good thing if you ask me.
You can either go the blog route (single or multi-user) or use a forum. There really isn't a good CMS for what your seem to want. What you might want to consider is a combined blog/forum if neither provide exactly what you need. WordPress and bbpress are able to integrate seamlessly if you are willing to put in the work.
WordPress also has plugins to integrate with both SMF and vBulletin as well if you choose to go that route (by the way, SMF is also set up out of the box to allow you to use server side and PHP includes to use it as a regular CMS and not just a forum - there's also TinyPortal available if you want to use that as well).