When you start a new forum, after installing everything do you then turn your attention to the initial forum area layout or go through the options within the ACP? Do you plan in advance what forum areas you're going to have or do it on a wing and a prayer while you're setting up?
I run through vB's ACP in one shot changing everything that needs changing. Metadata, Imagemagik, images per post, etc. Setting up boards is generally on a wing and a prayer for me.
That's the one thing I really liked about vB's ACP. God knows it was ugly, but being able to go down a full list of options and configure everything in a few minutes makes up for it.
My steps for setting up a forum are: 1. Install all the addons (I upload along with the actual software) and styles. 2. Go through options and set everything I need done. 3. Create all the usergroups I'm going to need initially (Generally do a list). 4. Create all the nodes, prefixes and notices I need, then set permissions.
ACP first. Even though we have great plans on what the forum should be, mostly it is what forum happened to be. So we may need to merge some boards and add a few news ones according to the activity and traffic.
The first thing I do when I install a forum is off to the member groups to make custom ones I want. The reason is because when I start adding boards, categories and modifications and have to adjust permissions on grouped member, the groups I have are already there so it wont cause extra work I also mess around the settings and options before making new boards and all that
