Almost. $160 for an unlimited vB license (one-time cost) and probably about $120-140 for a year of hosting and a domain name. After that, maintenance would just be hosting.
Of course, you could forgo the vB license , and go with one of the free alternative message boards, but there is a certain aura that comes with using an expensive product. And vB comes with rather good customer support, I hear.
The only limitation with vB that I could see for TRF is the large number of groups, that would make traffic pretty high and organization pretty hectic. It wouldn't be as simple, anymore, as someone just creating an ezBoard and getting going. Then again, that could be good for TRF, in that peopel would need more commitment to a group and building it up before being offered a board space on the server, perhaps.
We certainly could host groups, like SWF has. It would help in overall activity, IMO, since everyone would then be on what is in essence a 'gold' board. It would certainly make TRF seem bigger, heh.
If we moved, probably the only thing that would change at first is TRF itself. Changes to how we do groups should probably come once everyone is used to the new software.
What I really like about vB, though, is the thought of being able to get any name I want. I could register any number of fantastic names I've thought up over the last two years. :)
I just mean that, unlike SWF, here at TRF groups seem to come and go more often. That's a bit more inconvinient on vB, I think. At least, that's the impression I've gotten, that stylesets and such are difficult to handle.
I do think it would be a great idea to move over though.
Well, if vB is anything like phpBB or IPB, creating some forums for a new group would involve a forum, and a set of sub-forums with restricted permissions. I would hope that vB has some robust usergroup permissions (I can't remember rightly, I should go look), so all you would have to do for usergroups is assign a leader, and let him allow/deny people into the usergroup.
As for the styles, well, a simple style would be fairly easy if you use CSS. Just some color changes, etc, and walla, a new version of whatever default style we would have.
And then there's the extensive changes you could make with templates, like what all of SWF's groups have. Those take a long time. If you're just changing colors and a few things like that, making a header, etc, you could do it quick, but if you're doing a complete revamp it takes upwards of a week's worth of afternoons.
So yeah, it would definetly be a lot more labor intensive in that area. I think that the benefits in other areas will outweigh those cons. A simple 'you-can-have-your-group-hosted-on-the-main-board-if-you-wish-after -playing-here-for-three-months-as-an-active-group' rule would help. Although, we don't get as many new groups as we once did.
