Currently, my rpg forum is hosted with proboards, but there are some features which I don't like about it and which I think may cause me problems in the future. (Heck, I don't like the forced ads for a start!) I've already bought a domain and webspace for it for self-hosting and decided to try SMF because I like the idea of having sub-accounts for characters, and not having to log in and out all the time. However, I'm having trouble installing the mod for it and when it comes to making a theme, I'm completely lost with it as I am not a coding expert. (Getting a professional to code it for me would be too expensive.)
So, what I'm looking for is the best forum to use in regards to the simplicity in customizing the look of it, has a simple (and upto date) sub-account plugin/mod, (I think part of the problem with the sub-account mod for SMF is that it's not been updated for ages.) and has good spam protection.
(I used to be a moderator on a vbulletin forum and the amount of spam attacks we got on that was astronomical, to such an extent we had to approve sign-ups and I'm sure that problem was part of the reason why the forum folded - we couldn't tell which new-sign ups were genuine users and which were spam.)
The options I have from looking at the sofaculous installer are:
phpBB
MyBB
AEF
Vanilla
PunBB
ElkArte (that one will be ironic, considering the fandom!)
Beehive
my little forum
TangoBB
Unclassified Newsboard
I want to know which one is the most user friendly for an admin who doesn't know a great deal about forum coding and would prefer an interface where I just pasted in banner images, hex codes, etc, than searching through lots of code, with a one click installer for apps.
If one also uses the fancier bbcode that I've used in my templates that will be a bonus, as I don't want to lose those if I can help it. Easily editable side bars like that which livejournal uses will be useful too. One of the few things I liked with proboards is the header and footer sections, so that would be useful too.