Well as requested I have moved the news table up on the forum portal. Also we were having a bit of a problem w/ forum bots. I have made quite a few changes to prevent this.
1. The forum url is now
http://bgoatclan.com/bgoat05/forums instead of
http://bgoatclan.com/forums. basically forum bots will find sites and just put in forums after the url and can sign in from there. if the forum link is a bit different this should prevent them from even finding the forum even though it's a redirect.
2. I have made 2 seperate member groups the first is just plain members. a plain member can not post a clickable URL. that measn if they type in
http://www.bgoat.com it won't be clickable in there post. how ever they could still post. once a member has 5 posts they bump up to a advanced member and then will be able to have clickable url's. however this doesn't prevent a bot from starting a new topic. so this brings us to number....
3. a new member can not start a topic unless that member first has atleast 5 posts/replies. thus preventing a bot from starting new topics.
I have also made an 18+ board. this doesn't mean just go ahead and post tons of porn. that isn't it's main focus. it's just a place were people can go to vent and perhaps swear and get away w/ a bit more then in the normal sections of the forum.
I also changed the ranks of members and such to. basically just the image changed and you have from level 1 to 9. I of course am an admin so I have a special one. these images/ ranks can be found just under your avatar and are based on your post count.
NOTE: If your a regular forum member and not a BGOAT member and under your avatar it still says member then you will need to have 5 posts to be bumped up to Advanced Member.