A little secret that most forums starting out don't heed.... start with the bare minimum forums.
You start out with a forum for every single thing you could ever talk about and people coming to your site are going to find a dead as hell looking forum, pretty far into its life.
Start small and those small places are lively.
And then grow and add as needed.
I think I should change my name to Gao Main Bastard every April... :anime: