I'm a student. Website development is something I do on the side.
For those of you who care, BF is now on a private dedicated server with the following configuration: Dual Core Xeon 3060, 4GB DDR2 667, 2x250GB SATA II. I personally can't stand slow loading websites, especially when they're forums.
I hired
Exaltic to design it.
vBSEO has been installed in order to increase the forum's search engine friendliness.
Once the new forum skin is complete, I'm going to hire another designer to create the portal's design. It will then be sent to the coder, and then to the programmer who will develop the content management system.
We're going to fill the portal with high quality content. I'm not quite sure what we're going to do, at this point, but I'm open to suggestions.
Whatever content we do host, will be user-submitted. BF will encourage user interaction. I was thinking a custom replay system where forum members can submit a replay and other members can download it, rate it, comment on it, etc. Another idea I've been throwing around is a custom screenshot system which would be similar to the replay system. When this happens, member profiles will be revamped to display the content the user has submitted.
Eventually we're going to host tournaments and competitions. These won't be for intangible prizes though, we're talking cash, games, subscriptions, t-shirts, etc.