1) Allow for both public and private (i.e. limited permission) forums.
2) Have the login be tied to another authentication system, most likely LDAP, although othersmay be a possibility. We want to have a sigle sign-on with the rest of the system we are building.
3) Allow non-regustered users to post, although email verifcation will be required. (Maybe to prevent spam? I need to check with the owner of this requirement.)
4) Allow multiple moderators.
5) Be able to easily create new forums as a moderator.
6) Create filters to detect such content as profanity, telephone numbers, and email addresses.
7) Customizable look & feel.
8) Create polls and allow users to see the results.*
9) Support blogging.*
10) Java based**

*These come from business owners who don't necessarily distinguish between technologies. I suspect most BBS don't support bloggin as there are many other tools for that. While some BBS support polls, I suspect I can meet the business need just as easily by using a specific polling tool.

** The rest fo the system is in Java. There is a convienence factor to maintaining a Java system. However, as this will probably change little, this is not a critical factor in my mind.