f13.net

As much as it pains me to admit it, the guild I'm running with in WOW currently could use a place out-of-game to post/discuss information.  What would be some recommendations for a simple, reliable, clean looking message board program that I can get for well...free.  Meaning that - I don't have anyway (that I'm aware of) to host a message board.

Any pointers, programs, ideas appreciated.

If you don't have a machine you can run message board software on use something like http://www.ezboard.com.

Invite them here, numbnuts.

Eventually they'll stop playing WoW and want to talk about other games. It only makes sense.

To be honest I'm not sure these folks are....ready for our boards.  I have a recovering drug addict that got released from prison (great guy though), a person with severe mental problems (I don't leave the house type   problems), a 14 year kid, a fat chick...see where I'm going with this?  This is not a chocolate and peanut butter scenario I don't think.  For us OR them.  However thanks for the invite, and I do refer people to the site if I think they might actually get the...culture? here.

That would require setting up a private board and somebody managing permissions. Are you volunteering?

There are some free forum hosting sites out there, you just have to put up with adverts. 

Heh. I fear nothing. But I can understand you fearing what will happen to them. Get a $3.99 a month hosting account at GoDaddy or 1And1 or whatever, and install SMF.

Or if you can wrap your head around CSS and blogger.com templates, you could implement a blogger.com "messageboard" skin… …not anywhere near as nice as Vanilla, SMF or full featured as phpBB, but FREE. And you can always register a domain cheaply and point DNS to ghs.google.com… …I think I did one a few years back that I patterned almost precisely on apple support forums.

Beats ad-laden, popup blooming, spyware infested freebler forums…

SMF is free.

Is your guild recruiting?

But web hosting where one can install SMF is not…

Unless SMF, like blogger or typepad(?), offers & sponsors a "we'll host your board for free" deal…

Yeg, I already have one staff member that can't stop playing WoW.

Heh.

phpbb is free to use, hosting can be had for as little as 6-10 a month (dreamhost is what I use). The only problem I have with it is that it seems to be a spam magnet.

How about guildportal? That seems to be the ezboard replacement for most of the guilds I've been part of recently. ($30/6 months)

Normally I let the instances where my jokes are taken seriously just float out there, but I would like to emphasize that I will resub to EQ2, EVE or LotRO before I play WoW again.  Forced-grouping with shitknobs is not my bag, though, so realistically it's just EVE.

But think of the children... oh wait, you did.

Just use guild portal. It works, and for limited use the free account will do.