I have talked plenty of times with you before on free forum scripts you can easily setup and run from your web hosting account. by far, the most unique one I have seen is Vanilla . the Vanilla Forums script is a great open-source, standards compliant forum script. however, that is not what impresses me. the thing that impresses me the most is the fact that is stands out from the rest of the crowd and refreshes the idea of what a set of forums should look like. Now a simple audio podcast can not do justice to how graphically different this forum script looks and feels. Rather than having a list of subforums, and within those having threads, right from the start you are seeing all of the most recent threads that have been posted on. That brings you the proverbial meat and potatoes right off the bat. you can categorize your posts into different subforums, but that is a secondary option rather than the first. When you visit a forum, you want to see the new stuff first. the fact that Vanilla-powered forums do that right off the bat is just amazing. I wish more forum scripts would try this different approach. You have full support for themes and add-ons, so you can really get down and dirty when it comes to customizing the look and feel you want your forums to have. the documentation is lacking in a few areas, but overall it does get the job done
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Vanilla Forums 101