I've fooled around with coding a whole forum. It's too tough for me :sad: But goodluck with it. I rather have my own unique, professional looking forum than another vbulletin forum.

I think all it does is aggravate the posters, and does little to clean up the forums.

I believe it's usually healthy for a forum to stear clear of political/religious debate, or atleast move it off to a separate forum. I myself am in the process of designing a political forum, and...

Getting 500 members can take weeks, months, or years. With a good niche, the right promotion, and a good forum layout, I'd say it could take a few months if your lucky.