bbpress.com

Well, OK, it’s not going to be bbpress.com. bbpress.com is taken, as is bbpress.net. This is just as well since, let’s be honest, the name ‘bbpress’ sucks almost as much as the product. No, it’s going to be TalkPress, currently home to a delightful phpBB installation, which if nothing else will teach them about COPPA declarations:

This is clearly hyperbole, as phpBB is a bloated piece of crap which is only about twice as good as bbPress, but in addition to COPPA maybe they will be able to figure out stuff like thread-splitting and post counts from it.

This will actually work. If you’re looking for a reliable free forum, you’re not in a position to quibble about features; you take what you can get. Plus of course it will be plugged over here in the manner of signmyguestbook.com on diaryland back in the day, when pretty much every diarylander had an smg account to match. The forums themselves will look like hell, of course, all massive fonts and unnecessary whitespace, but they’ll probably allow colour customisation and custom headers, plus the ads won’t be as conspicuous as on the average free host, so your average Snow Lover will be in clover. bbPress can’t compete on the self-hosted front — it remains a toy for dedicated fanboys and career moderators — so this is a smart move.