What Feature Are You Looking For in Forum/Message Board Software

I think that most forum software packages have too many features built in. This results in a lot of code bloat and visual confusion for the users. The package I've been most impressed with is punBB which is very minimalist and completely standards compliant. Even things like signatures and avatars are only availble through plugins, which I think is overdoing it a little bit.

I would consider switching to a new system if it had:

• full standards compliance (which is much more than just passing a validator at xHTML trans.)
• few unnecessary features (things I consider to be unnecessary are buddy/ignore lists, ratings, subscriptions, post icons etc.)
• better usability (less feature bloat would help; terminology needs to be more obvious. A good beginner orienetation guide would be another good addition)
• a good article/blog/content management system (could be simple, but a way to add a nice front end with some content is needed, and I think a lot of people would agree here
• proper CSS management (I don't know about other packages but vBulletin has a really huge newbie type interface and no way to easily edit CSS by hand. And they pile it into every single page instead of creating a proper external CSS file
• generally less bloat and extra code that weighs down pages
• better SEO (key word URL's; proper mark-up and less bloat helps here as well)

In general I think the BB systems that are out there now are very bloated and rather old school. I was thinking a lot awhile back about why forums have been blown out of the water by social networking sites like mySpace. Integrating that kind of functionality might be a really good selling point. Basically, more functionality in the user profiles so they can add friends (okay, that's buddy lists but the design needs to map on the the social networking model), leave messages for each other, add more extensive personal information, things like that. Plugins for blogging and photo galleries are available.

The look also has to be good and modern. You can tell by looking at the default vBulletin tempaltes that it was last redesigned somewhere around 1998. The layout and visuals should look a little more "with it." (which these days means minimalist).

So what I would recommend to you as a developer is first of all, not to include stuff just because all the other systems have it. Just because they all include it doesn't mean that people even use it or need it. And secondly, take a cue from the popularity of the new social netowrking sites and think about what you can take from that and apply to a forums environment.

Ermmmm.. I'm not sure where you're at right now.... I think avatars and signatures are essential. Oh, I didn't mention moderator features. That's really important. I especially like vBulletin's ability to "soft" delete posts, which means the post is never completely erased from the database (unless you specificaly tell it to). You can just hide it from members and leave a reason for deletion. vBulletin also has a lot of nice ajax based moderating features in the new version which are really helpful.

Get the basics down, then go from there What I suggested above would be good to think about...

I don't know what the basics are. I need someone to help me on this issue.

I'd mostly agree with what megan posted - expecially the less bloat message.

Don't agree with this one though, sorry:

Quote: a good article/blog/content management system (could be simple, but a way to add a nice front end with some content is needed, and I think a lot of people would agree here

Tacking non-forum features like a blog to a forum system is just the sort of bloat I hate! Forum software should concentrate on doing forums well. None really do that, so I can't see the point in complicating things further.

More banning / blocking / tracking options would also be added to my list. I've had to write additions to several forum packages for customers who were using them commercially, because the default packages were so inadequate.