5 What it fails to deliver in volume of features is made up for
in streamlined functionality, fast-loading pages, and much easier customization. PunBB is
also free and open source, and actually has more platform options than its brother, phpBB.
(The forum shown in Figure 10-5 is driven by PunBB.)
Forum administration
The one significant disadvantage to maintaining a community forum is the amount of time
needed to moderate members, threads, and spam. For small forums??”a few hundred
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3. www.invisionpower.com
4. www.phpbb.com
5. http://punbb.org
members and maybe a few dozen posts a day??”a single person can sufficiently monitor
the activity. For larger forums??”those over 1,000 members??”several moderators are
needed to keep discussions on track. As you can see in Figure 10-6, a moderator has the
power to lock threads, delete posts, and ban users, but is also expected to contribute to
good conversations, and even answer questions from members as needed.
Figure 10-6. This screen from phpBB shows how administrators can ban usernames, IP addresses,
and e-mail addresses.
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