Simple Machines Forum (SMF) is the database/forum software the Diner runs on.  It's a very old, open source piece of software that has evolved over the years as a HUGE number of independent developers contributed their time to create a variety of modules that increased its functionality as well as addressed a variety of security issues that have cropped up over the years.  Not all the modules are of equal quality because all the developers who added stuff weren't equally proficient, nor did they generally go through all the source code to look for places where one module might interfere with or trip over the code in another one.

As a result, the final product isn't always altogether stable, particularly if it gets interfered with from outside, as this one periodically does.  Sometimes this is the MIB poking around, sometimes the SMF folks issue updated versions, and sometimes Kdog himself who likes to tinker and tweak things makes a change which have unanticipated consequences.  The current version is v2.1.4

This version is pretty good , but it does have weaknesses I don't like, a major one is very old which is how threads get tied together.  They default to the topic of the OP as reference, and if that gets changed or disturbed later, it can orphan all the subsequent posts made in the thread.  They are still there, but they don't appear in the thread when you don't address it directly.

Anyhow, overall we don't lose too many postsand since Forums have gone out of style in favor of social media, there's nothing available FOR FREE that's better than SMF for running a forum.  It has a lot of functionality with levels and controls and for the most part operates quickly and has a good search engine.  It's not perfect though, so you gotta live with a few problems.

RE