Hello.

I have a new client who currently has an extremely active MSN communities website, who wants to leave MSN for their own domain name.

I need your help in choosing which is the best message board to install.
I am leaning towards Invision, but thought I'd ask all your suggestions. Most of the user's on the board are from 12 - 18.

I've noticed many boards won't allow swear words. Which boards is this accessable on? Also Spellcheck is very handy.
Some PHPBB boards have participation points. Get points for your posts, and you can spend them in games, and the lottery (to get more points )
These are all nice little addons which will make the board more fun and interactive (keeping in mind that the audience range).

Anyway I could go on, but I'm just looking for your opinion as to what you would suggest. I really value your opinion, and you have greatly helped me in creating my site: www.lavashark.com

I've already had four web design customers, and six hosting customers. I have more work than I can handle, and the site is booming.

Thanks for all your help .

-Will Stein

All depends on what your server resources are. I personally say go with Ikonboard (Perl) running on mySQL backend. Very reliable, very stable. Never had an issue that wasn't my own fault. I know it's Perl...but it runs *surprisingly* fast...for Perl. Otherwise, go with FUDforum. Very good. Haven't seen it used much, but what I've seen I like.

If its really active, I'd say it might be good to go with vBulletin. It costs a hella money but its worth it if its a large community where you could serve ads or something to make up for the money you spent.

Other then that, I'd say phpBB. IPB is like the RedHat of the forum world - offering things for "free" (hence the quotes)

To start out with InvisionBoard in my opinion would be a good choice. It's free and its got a lot of features. I also believe there are scripts available that let you transfer your contents from IPB to VBulletin that you can use later on if you decide to upgrade to VBulletin. I've also used phpBB but I think Invision has a better admin panel.