I only mentioned it for creditabilities' sake. Maybe I shouldn't have.

I wasn't "pimping" anything.

Ninkazu, vBulletin themes aren't that hard to write... just lots of complicated variables. They're stored in the database though - so it's fun. PM me if you want me to give you a few words on them.

[edit - could be considered "pimping"]

Quote:Ya, I used to like phpBB, I still do somewhat because of its new message system. Invision board tends to show forums still have new items even when you've read them all o_O

That's what I like most about YaBB SE vs. other forums. It stores whether or not you have read a thread - seen a board. That way, even if I come back to a YaBB SE forum tommorow, I can read threads a I missed today.

And, seph, I looked on google for this "NeoForum" you speak of. I've never heard of it and neither has Google.... unless you mean the hacking group. At least a search for YaBB SE gets results .
[/could be considered "pimping"]

Anyway, as to actual database design...

You want a users table, posts table, topics table, and boards table.
Have an id on each, like user_id, post_id, topic_id, board_id. That'll be what you need to link them together.

So, posts will have user_id (the poster), post_id (the post), topic_id (the topic), time (time of post), and post. (the message itself.)
Topics would then have a title, board_id (board it's in), post_id (first post), last_post_id (the last post in the topic), user_id (first poster), last_user_id (last posts' poster) and problem update_time (last time the thread was posted in/edited/etc.)
Boards would need a title, description, order, last_topic_id maybe, whatever.

Take a look at the schemas of some forums for more information.
[/edit]

-[Unknown]