Setting Up an Online Forums

[infernus]

Greetings... I dont know if Im on the right thread for this. Anyway, Im currently a student officer of our college course. Part of my plan is setting up an online forum (like this and other types of forum boards) for my fellow classmates to view and get notified easily of updates, events and many more. Since internet is very vibrant today, I came up with this idea.

I address this specially to the admins, designers and owners of forum boards

Now:

1. How hard is it to manage a forum (managing registrations, paswords, editing threads etc)

2. Are there any good sites for free hosting? Preferrably which can handle adequate amount of users online (there maybe bandwith limits with free hosting right?)

3. Are there any software, program or any kind which is required in setting up a forum (like this forum board which states below VBulletin and on others, I see Lo-Fi Version something like that), or are there presets which Im just going to install and edit (like making forum headers).

And any other information and instructions that I must know. Kindly inform me pls. Thank you very much and hoping for a reply.

[Law]

There are a lot of free forum hosting and there are website that will help you set up a forum quickly and easily for a certain amount of money which you pay monthly for the hosting cost, but there are also free applications and servers you can use from the open-source community that you can do yourself. For example, MySQL database service, Apache web service + PHP, and phpBB phpBB.com down (website down but downloads are linked). You might also need to setup your own SMTP service for registration but that's optional. Also registering for a domain name.

[Kubel]

To avoid ads, consider hosting at home (if you have a high speed, always on connection) using AppServ and a lightweight forum such as PunBB.