The contributions list at the old ezboard forum isn't up anymore but I seem to remember there were many hefty contributions to pay the Ezboard gold community fee. The cost for the EzGold was in excess of USD200.00 for many years if I'm not mistaken, which is certainly more than the IPB or vBulletin license fees. The board traffic has also dropped a great deal from those times, so it's hard to say if those kinds of contributions could be raised again or if they're even justified nowadays.

More than anything else, the internet is a business, there are no doubts about that and if users such as ourselves want services, we're going to have to pay for them. It's a little unfair to suggest that Neelick or Zeal shoulder all of the costs, so everyone that comes here (including me) should ask ourselves if we would be willing to contribute to keep the site going, just like in the old Ezboard days. Maybe funds could be raised to purchase hosting and BBS software licenses, but there's no way to know without asking everyone.

What is the price of our current webhost?

I front the cost of the current webhost its 9.99 a month for unlimited space and bandwidth. I pay 3 months in advance for 29.99; neelick has helped a couple times but its not a free service, before you ask i've checked on free services and hosting and i've found there's always a catch most don't have databases and the ones that do would not allow a database our size to upload.

Forum Software:

Invision Power Board if you wanna think about getting it should be this one - Invision Power Board Perpetual License · $185.00
This will give you a perpetual license to use Invision Power Board for one installation and access to all future versions. One year of support and related services is included. After one year an optional $30 renewal for support and related services is available.

vbulletin antother type stated by bkev -
vBulletin (Owned License) - $160.00
The owned vBulletin Forum license allows you to run the software on your site indefinitely. Along with this license, you will receive one year of free updates. Beyond the first year, you will have to pay a nominal fee, currently $30, to obtain updates for an additional year.

This license includes free email and forum support. Phone Support is not included in the license price but may be purchased for an additional cost either at the time of initial purchase, or afterwards through the members' area.

Now these forums are nice and they have nice features, but i'd rather just convert the forums to SMF if you want subforum etc. SMF is a good alternative to the vbulletin and ipb route.

I've successfully converted the forum from phpbb to smf, a demo can be found here

Interesting.

I'll have to look more closely at SMF and its features (I don't know a thing about it). Still, that looks interesting.

One of my main concerns is to get EVERYTHING off of the old Ezboard before it becomes Yuku-ized. That means the entire character forums too (I know MJH has already archived them). If we can do that, and reorganize them into sub-forums, then I'll be very happy.

I was thinking along the lines of transferring everything into phpbb, then using the phpbb as an archive while recreating the forums anew on Invisionfree. But if we are willing to get an IPB perpetual liscense and keep the entire board intact (converting from phpbb), then that would work too.

The basic IPB hosting package is $10 a month. How large is the board anyway?

SMF is really nice, I suggest we move to that. But we have to stick with a main skin I think, can't customize as much as we have now. One really nice feature is an arcade. Plus, new posts button makes it so much easier to browse.

SMF and vBulletin are my choices; if Neelick is willing to pay or if we could do a fund raiser or something, vBulleltin is the better choice; for now let's go to SMF. Invisionfree, one thing that really bugs me, is that with "new posts" it only shows new topics, making larger forums hard to browse.

SMF can host downloads, which is GREAT. Finally the Tenchi episodes can go here!