What would be the easiest way for a beginner to start and host a message board on their own site?
Where do i begin?
The short answer is: start with an EZBoard online and see if it works out, then move to a Board on your own site.
The long answer, or if you really just want your own Board at home: assuming you want a board like the SDMB, you need
- A computer you can run pretty much all the time.
- Broadband with a static IP (or good forwarding system)
- Apache, MySQL, and PHP installed.
- vBulletin board software.
I posted a lengthy series of posts on my Board about how to install MySQL, PHP, Apache, etc. so people there could install and use the open-source PHP recipe database I wrote. But once you have all those things running it’s very easy to set up vBulletin.
Really, I could write for pages on this but I think you might benefit most from defining your question and needs a bit.