>>55263380What is stopping you from joining an existing forum? There are several active Pokemon ones already.
If you must create your own, there are premade board softwares, I think PHPBB is one, or you could build your own.
Starmen.net has custom software which is great, but that is a public board. I think most public forums are subject to public scrutiny so that is why they have so many stupid rules which ends up ruining the board. That may be why the best forums can be seen by users only, or even invite-only. LUElinks/End of the Internet had the best forum software ever, which was custom-built as well. It had live page update when somebody posts, so it was kind of a hybrid of forum and chatroom. I was part of a imageboard based around Pokemon for a few years and it gained traction, but the attached chatroom killed all on-board disccussion and eventually died. A good board has few rules, bad boards have too many rules and powerhungry moderators.
My advice can be condensed as follows: Invite-only, custom software, few rules and flexible mods, and no associated chatroom (IRC, discord, etc).
