I would like to set up a private forum for a limited number of people (no more than 15). Has anyone here done this?
VBulletin is not free, but you can easily set something up in a few minutes using an alternative like Discourse.
also phpBB
You will also need a minimal server to run the software. If your network and electricity are reliable at your home or office, you can just use that, otherwise you can rent a virtual server from Amazon or similar for around $3.50/month.
I did with ProBoards. It’s free. The forum was just me and three other women. We did it for several years.
Wouldn’t a group chat through a messenger app be sufficient?
Another alternative would be a mailing list.
Why not just invite them to a private Facebook group or something? Way less effort.
Basically I want to use it for condo board members, with each thread representing an open issue. I am hoping it will be a good way to open, track and close issues.
Email or group chat are fine for emergency communication but do not provide long term documentation. The Facebook idea sounds good, but I have a visceral dislike of that platform.
I just now opened a forum on ArmorForums which looks like it might meet my needs.
Check some of the mafia games on here. I haven’t played mafia on this board, but when I played on GB, whoever was running it would set up a forum. Proboards maybe?
I don’t recall too much about it, but it seemed adequate for the 15 or so people that were on it.
Yeah, if you can get some site to host your forum for you, rather than you having to supply your own server and domain, that would be easiest.
I do not know about Proboards or Armorforums, but, buyer beware, lest they serve up spam or similar. E.g., discourse.org, which I mentioned, will host your forum if you want but you have to pay a few bucks a month. But maybe some sites offer a free, non-spam, non data-mining level of service as long as your forum is small enough, what do I know.
You could create a private subreddit.
Another Proboards user. From as few as 5-6 to as many as 200 it worked well for a wide range of applications. Haven’t opened a new one in several years but I doubt its changed much.
Instead of a forum, have you considered an actual helpdesk/issue tracker service? Freshdesk is free to start with, and is vastly superior in terms of being able to track issues across multiple people, email messages, etc. You can close/open/assign/reassign/merge/etc. tickets very easily. And it has the nice benefit of allowing users to just send emails with complaints/issues, without needing to create yet another forum account.
If it wasn’t for the “visceral dislike of the platform”, an invite-only Facebook group would be perfect for this. Every community thing I’ve been involved in for the last decade or so (from a chapter of Sunday Assembly to a ukelele orchestra) has organised itself this way, often with way more than 15 members.
It has the added advantage that up your members won’t need to learn anything new - they’re likely already on Facebook, and if they’re anything like the human beings I know, they’ll always take the path of least resistance. If you want them to actually use this facility, give them something they already use.
Oops, sorry… I think I got confused between the OP and a reply there. My bad.
This +1000. Go with something your members already use. Don’t make them learn something new. If you do, you won’t get a community, just a collection of the worst complaints people have. That’s the only thing that makes people sign up for new platforms.