Free Forum Hosting for Small Workgroups?

[Pangloss]

Does anybody know a good place to host a free forum? I've got 7 students to support in a little internship group, plus maybe up to half a dozen more added later. I set up a forum for them at freeforums.org, but it's abysmally slow, and I was hoping for something a little speedier. I know that's a bit much to ask when there's no money involved, but I figured it couldn't hurt to ask around.

 

I saw a bunch of free services listed in a google search but I was hoping to hear from someone who's used one that's really good. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Double K]

What about just setting up a blog page?

These are free, you could simply put an "article" in for comment and then people can add their own comments to the bottom of it. I guess the downside is that they would have to submit topics to you directly for posting.

Or if they are all trusted enough you could just hand out the login details to each of them if it's only a small community.

 

try here

[Genecks]

How about setting up a mail-list instead?

Or maybe something on Telnet... create a telnet BBS server...

 

A mail-list is probably seriously simple and faster.

 

Here is something BBS-wise: http://www.synchro.net/

 

Double K's suggestion is somewhat new fashion. I saw it come about in the past 7 years or so... I don't think too many people really that way of communication, though. I think a mailing list would be far superior. I think I got involved with one of those once. From what I remember, I didn't like it.

 

Maybe you can get away with finding a website that will allow you to make a mailing list. Maybe sourceforge? I don't know.

Edited June 4, 2010 by Genecks

[Pangloss]

Wow, a mailing list is serious old-school, but I like it. It has a nice advantage in terms of immediacy -- they don't have to stop by the web site in order to know something has changed, and they might even get email on their telephone. And it'd be easy to store everything for future reference (I want to rinse and repeat this exercise for future batches of student-interns). The only real down side is I can't "sticky" important info, but they can just save those emails. I think I'll check into that, thanks Genecks.

 

I thought about the blog idea but I don't think the format really works for us. I appreciate the suggestion, though, DK.

[the tree]

I think freepowerboards.com (phpbb) and ipbfree.com (ivpb) might be a tad faster.

[Genecks]

Wow, a mailing list is serious old-school, but I like it. It has a nice advantage in terms of immediacy -- they don't have to stop by the web site in order to know something has changed, and they might even get email on their telephone. And it'd be easy to store everything for future reference (I want to rinse and repeat this exercise for future batches of student-interns). The only real down side is I can't "sticky" important info, but they can just save those emails. I think I'll check into that, thanks Genecks.

 

I thought about the blog idea but I don't think the format really works for us. I appreciate the suggestion, though, DK.

 

I meant to say I got involved with one of those group blog things. I didn't like it. I don't think people really like them.

 

I was tired when I wrote that post. Then again, I'm in more of a sleep deficit than I was while I wrote it. Things change, though. Life moves on.

 

Yeah, I think a mailing-list is what I would do. The other things seem like too much effort in a short amount of time.

 

Despite mailing-lists being old school, a lot of techies still use them. I find myself using a mailing list to mail the software user group whenever the author of said software just got too lazy to make a manual for his/her software suite/program. Sometimes authors do this in order to figure out what should be included in a software manual if one is to be made based on people's questions and discussion in the mailing-list. One mailing list that I spent a decent amount of time on in the past while was the BackupPC mailing-list. Albeit the manual is somewhat decent, reading through that thing and understanding how to use its information can be cryptic at times.

 

Mailing-lists are still useful in the 21st century.

 

Now for something like the XORG mailing-list? I think a mailing-list has become inadequate, but people might disagree with me.

Edited June 4, 2010 by Genecks