What's in it for you? By helping the xmb open source project development, you will have real world examples to show potential employers your skills, or you could learn new skills, while knowing you have helped forum owners keep their websites current.
History: xmb forum has existed since 2001 and a google search will show thousands of websites using xmb forum.
While the core code is functional, it has not kept up with current trends such as AJAX.
While you are free to develop as you see fit, some mods/hacks/add-ons that would be good to familiarize yourself with the core would be
- a like/dislike post/topic similar to Facebook.
- an inline 'Post Reply' that uses Ajax to not have to reload the entire topic/page after a post reply has been made.
- tagging of members in posts that would send a personal message to let the member(s) know to read that post.
- hashtags on words in posts, which allows searching in those tagged words
The community forum and download:
http://forums.xmbforum2.com/