Seems quite a decent forum, especially compared to The Pinkun. I have to admit I prefer the phpBB® Forum Software used on F365, etc but this is not bad.
phpBB is a free open source software, and if I were being a skinflint I'd have chosen it out of the free options, and if I were minted I'd have gone for Xenforo. Open source options are all good for sites that just want to shove a forum on a subdomain as an extension to a content site (a bit like the Pink'un as it happens),but it would probably help if I explained what licenses I have here. I have....
- IP Board
- IP Gallery
- IP Blog
- IP Chat
- IP Download
- IP Content
Ultimately, here is an example of what can be achieved on Invision:
http://www.talkchelsea.net/ - It is much more than forum software, it is an entire CMS / framework.That entire site is built on the software that I have licenses for. No free open source forum software can do all that, the possibilities here are pretty much endless.
When going open source you also have to consider the possibility that the competent programmers decide to stop working for free and future versions end up useless, in fact I'm surprised that a business the size of Football365 would use an open source solution, wouldn't want to be the employee who is one day tasked with migrating millions of posts to alternative functioning software. All well and good saying that phpBB is decent now, but it can soon fall too far behind with its reliance on free labour. Besides, I personally think that phpBB sites look crap - isn't the Pink'un run on phpBB?
Only thing I would say as a long time forummer is there are far too many sub forums. It's too much effort to go through each one imo. Merge all the Norwich Threads into one and have 'Official' threads dedicated to players, youth team, ex players etc. I would also have one forum dedicated to to other sports and one for off topic.
It is possible that there will be a reduction in the number of forums in the future but no immediate plans to alter anything on the board index, therefore will mark this thread as resolved.
