Ikonboard is quite slow, I've used it myself in the past.. CGI/PERL isn't really what to use for forums, if you're looking for something fast, nice and easy .. with great features and good administration, you should install a PHP/MySQL backend into the system and install InvisionBoard.

Check it out, I've installed it myself for a few websites, even a IRC Network as I'm a Server Admin there, and they love it! Oh and you can also do many things with it and integrate alot of features of the forums to your website, ie. whatever you post in a certain section of the forums come up on your website and more and more and more I'll get into more detail on it later if this thread gets anywhere.

http://www.auscape.org/forum
http://malicous.ath.cx/forums

While I like PHP, it is not the be-all and end-all.

For a start, we already DO have an SQL backend, postgres, infact, which I prefer to mysql for quite a number of reasons, one of which being its more SQL99 compliant (if you know anything about SQL standards), and it supports propper foreign keys, subselects, etc. Stuff you expect from any SQL implementation worth its salt.

Second, we use mod_perl with our forums, so everything is pre-loaded into the webserver on webserver startup -- we don't need to execute a new process every time (like traditional CGI), etc. This speeds up CGI dramatically, and essentially eliminates any speed differences that would exist between PHP and perl (for all intents and purposes).

I also went to both links you posted (the second of which is dead), and have concluded you really have no basis on which to talk. The first forum has a total of 1 posts, the second, as I said, 404'd. Not something I would call 'extensive proof'. Contrast that to our 'slow' ikonboard (which I find to be quite snappy, especially with mod_perl and the latest version of postgres) that already has over 80,000 posts and 1000 members, in not even a year of operation. Not too bad, I'd say.

So while I appreciate the reasoning behind your statements, I'd need more than your opinion to go through the effort of both changing goth.net's database system, and throwing away almost years worth of forum posts/members/etc to go to an entirely new system. Especially since nobody has complained about the speed of the forums yet, except you.

Uhh it was just a minor suggestion, I wasn't complaining that your ikonboard was slow, just saying from my own experience with them in the past .. not sure what versions it was a real pain in the ass, especially with space and resources!