@wiak
Suggesting I am unable to deal with the technicality of phpBB is a mean way of motivation. Happens to be at this point people coming to me for answers on how to do this that and the other thing on phpBB. This forum is customized at the core code level by me by hand. Lets see you do it amigo.
Let's see you come up with someone who will convert a broken down million and half posts phpBB2 to a functioning phpBB3 for you for free. Laughable if it wasn't so sad. With the spam removed on top of it all.
The guy you mention is a German who makes official extensions for phpBB but is a copy and paste coder and gave us some time to get his things running correctly.
This forum lives on a server that is physically in Dusseldorf Germany. Which means what?........that we are 100% bound to comply with EU laws and we got some FREE advice and help to do that. Usually the guy's help costs money.
Here is the first phase of a new structure. Now none of our backups are any good...so let me know if I am steering in the right direction.