WowBB is a commercial forum script that I wasted my money on because I abandoned the script on a site of mine. I’m not saying I wasted my money because of the script itself, but it’s more of how I feel about starting forums. They’re tough, and I’ve decided long ago that my interest in starting one has waned.
On the other hand, if you have your heart set on starting a commercial forum, WowBB is a pretty nice piece of software. With so many forum sites powered by VBulletin out there, it’s refreshing to see a different look and feel in a fully functional bulletin board system.
The WowBB forum files have long been deleted from my hosting account, but what I do remember liking about this software is that you could try it for free for thirty days to see if it’s the right choice. Of course, you’ll have to try it on a subdomain of wowbb.com, but it still gives you the opportunity to test drive the forum administration before forking over some cash for it.
I also seem to remember something about maps being integrated so you could see the graphical locations of users and sort them by specific locations. Users can also create polls which is great encouragement for user participation. A user can also upload a custom avatar or select from galleries you provide which you can add to at any time.
The admin section offers the ability to view user IP’s, a layered and extremely flexible permission system, graphical visitor statistics, and the ability to create custom profile fields in a users control panel for fields not provided in the default view.
There’s plenty more that I haven’t mentioned, so if you’re tired of phpBB and looking for something a little different, go check out all of the WowBB features over at the website.