I could set you up a forum to work with no problem.
And how serious will you take it without it being a paid endeavour? How much quality could they expect? Will you be available to help support the site if they encounter issues? Will you teach them how to use it? And more to the point, will you actually take the time to understand their request? Chat room != forum.
First: they asked for a quote. This means they are looking for somebody who
does this for a living. And you know what? That's the best idea. You get what you pay for. If somebody is willing to do it for free, it's a safe bet that they do not do it for a living and for the most part are hardly a professional with it. For me I occasionally have people ask me to set up small sites for their beginning company, but I tell them pretty much outright that I am not a professional and they
will need to get somebody who does it for a living to redo the site later. Usually they are fine with it, because they are just starting and don't really want to invest a whole lot in a super-professionally designed site when they aren't even sure how long their business will last. Most importantly, I still don't work for free. This is important. A person working for "free" isn't working, they consider it a "favour" to the person they are making the site for. It's not a job. There is no level of professionalism, and again, the question raises
why the person would work for free. Sure, it makes sense for a web designer to maybe help their relatives or friends set up a web site, but they know those people. A alleged web designer/developer working for free on setting on a website- or chatroom, or any of that, for free, and for a perfect stranger ought to raise a few questions as to just how much experience that person has as well as whether they have any at all (if they had any, they would not be working for free!)
