Why create a forum in 2025?
I created this forum because I'm sick to death of everything being locked behind Discord Servers which are not only limited in the amount you can join, but require an account to view ANYTHING. They can be spun up and nuked on a whim.
This forum will have publicly viewable forums which will not require an account to see but will require one to interact.
If you'd like more information on what forums are publicly available, just log out and see for yourself.
Why phpBB when there are other, better softwares out there?
I have 20+ years experience with phpBB, I know it inside out. It's also free.
I've used vBulletin, Invision Power, myBB, Simple Machines and a few others but I always fall back to phpBB.
[What's the forum structure?
Administration
[Restricted to Admins and Mods]
All chats between admins and mods will go here.
General
[Publicly viewable]
Introductions and social conversation will go here.
Gaming
[Publicly viewable - partially. LFG is hidden]
All things PC and console gaming go here, from industry news to grouping up with fellow gamers.
Technology
[Publicly viewable - partially]
All things regarding the IT and Cyber Security industry. All topics must be kept legal. Any illegal content warrants a permanent ban.
We'll talk about industry news, breaches and hacks aswell as any sort of research/education you're doing.
Creative
[Publicly viewable]
A category to discuss anything food, arts n crafts, web work or anything else
Mature
[Restricted - Requires account and access to usergroup]
A topic to talk about fitness and health, cited where possible.
We also have a support forum to vent and some input from others who have similar life experiences.
You will take all replies with a grain of salt and local professionals when requires. I am not offering a replacement for professional help.
Archive
[Restricted - requires an account]
Public archive is publicly viewable.
Private archive is restricted to admins and senior mods.
Depending on popularity I will spin up new forums/categories to accomodate discussion outside more generalized spaces.
Anything else to say?
Yes. This forum has a single extension installed for anonymizing IP Addresses on a regular basis.
We use secure cookie to store login sessions and that's it. We don't track your online activity or engage with ad companies.
If you run wappalyzer, ghostery, adblockers, privacy badger, etc... you shouldn't get any hits - please let me know if you do and I'll investigate.
I use recaptcha as part of registration but that's it.
This forum was created and is fully supported by me.
At the time of this post the forum currently uses the default prosilver theme but I am looking to find a suitable theme to customize.
I'm not planning on having selection of themes to pick from as I'll be keeping the forum software and underlying web server up to date as much as possible.
Attachments are not allowed. I'm hosting this by myself and can't afford storage space for a lot of attachments so upload them somewhere else and link them here
I'm also not posting a whole list of forum rules.
Keep your moral compass tuned and be nice. We're here to stick together, not cause rifts.
Any sort of harassment, abuse or illegal content won't be tolerated and will be dealt with swiftly.
If you have any issues with a topic, PM a forum-specific mod.
If you have any issues with another user, PM a global mod.
If you have any issues with a mod, PM me directly.
You can view the Admin and Mod Team Here
