How to Forum?

[REDJOHNNYMIKE]

Would any of you nice moderators or administrators mind explaining to me the basics of how forums work, and how they are created and maintained?

[El Sitherino]

1. Server
2. Forum software
3. ???
4. Profit.

[Det. Bart Lasiter]

1. Server
2. Forum software
3. Lots of forum members and advertisments for them
4. Profit

[REDJOHNNYMIKE]

The reason I ask is, I would like to know what would be involved in making a small forum for local gamers, to set up tournaments and other stuff.

Do you have to use your own server? I don't know much about websites either, but from what I've heard you can have them hosted for free, are there any forms of forums that work the same way, or including a forum in a website?

@jmac, (3) I mean on a small scale, no one outside of the county would even be interested.

[Det. Bart Lasiter]

You could use IRC. Or learn PHP or Java or C# or whatever to program your own forum software, seeing as vBulletin requires a license fee (I think, check their website though).

Free servers are moderately easy to find though: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...=Google+Search

***Edit To #3 & #4***
3. Not that many members and some advertisments for them
4. Failure to exceed profit margin

[tk102]

You could take a peek at http://www.phpbb.com and set one up on a Windows PC (enable IIS) with a Microsoft Access database to get a feel for what goes on behind the scenes.

[Jeff]

I know InvisionFree hosts Invision Power Board for free, that would probably be a good option for a free forum that is on a free server. Or like tk said, phpbb is pretty easy to use. That's what I use

[The Doctor]

FFWM12 and I use InvisionFree for SuperObscura, and I used to use Proboards for my Doctor Who forums (which failed miserably).