Need a very simple group brainstorming site

[gsull]

similar to http://www.besigner.com .

I want to work on some art projects with friends as ideas occur to us, and we need a forum or something with instant access to posting, and a decent way of organizing it.  Also, it shouldn't need a lot of permissions to post, as little a threshold to get to writing our thoughts down as possible.  Any ideas?  I'd use the besigner engine, but the author seems very hard to reach (no replies to my emails)

[dk70]

Most forum makers offer some sort of free hosting, like Informe for phpbb http://informe.com/

Google Group might be enough http://groups-beta.google.com/googlegroups/overview.html or a Yahoo Group http://groups.yahoo.com/

[gsull]

All of those are too complex.  Thanks for the suggestions, though. 

I want real bare-bones design and feature set.  It's basically a guestbook with some threading capabilities, that sorts newest threads/posts to the top.

[brotherS]

All of those are too complex.

If that's too complex I suggest you think about carrier pigeons

[mouser]

I can definitely see classifying these are too complex in the sense that he just wants to be able to go to a site and create a super simple forum in a minute by filling out some quick details, which his friends can really quickly join, without having to worry about tons of settings.

Surely there are sites like this so let's hear some more suggestions.

[dk70]

Actually I find Yahoo Groups a bit confusing to use, dont know about setting it up - but a Google Group does not require more than a few clicks to get going. Not tons of important settings or many questions asked, once created there some options to modify looks/permissions. If only group/"forum" featues are used rest can be disabled/made invisible so simplicity is possible. Layout/managing/posting/reading/searching is about as simple as it gets. Probably less to worry about than on a hosted forum and they are not complicated.

May be not so bad to move above guestbook quality/features. "organizing" "project" "friends (members)" spell forum or a group thing. Made for this.

[Deozaan]

similar to http://www.besigner.com .

I want to work on some art projects with friends as ideas occur to us, and we need a forum or something with instant access to posting, and a decent way of organizing it.  Also, it shouldn't need a lot of permissions to post, as little a threshold to get to writing our thoughts down as possible.  Any ideas?  I'd use the besigner engine, but the author seems very hard to reach (no replies to my emails)

I wrote some very simple PHP discussion boards I'd be willing to give you the source to. Alternately, you can use a very simple wiki-like interface known as Minki that was made by fellow DC Member Allen. I'll send you a link to my little PHP discussion boards in a private message as the only working example I have for it has information that wasn't intended for public viewing.

[mouser]

I was also going to recommend you check into a wiki.

After checking out a bunch of wikis for very lightweight small group (2 people in this case) wiki for collaborating, and fell in love with DokuWiki, mainly for its simplicity and easy password protection:

http://www.splitbrain.org/projects/dokuwiki

Note that this does *NOT* fulfill your request for threaded discussions.  It more like version controled page editing.

[Deozaan]

Another thing:

Besigner.com looks like a regular blog with multiple people being able to access it. Why not sign up for a Blogger account and set permissions for your friends to all be able to post to it? Again this doesn't include threading, but it will give you pretty much everything you see as Besign.com

[jgpaiva]

This may sound stupid, but you could just use pastebin. Nothing simpler, just make one first post, give the link to all of you, and then just post follow-ups on that same post. It doesn't have any permissions (although there's a way to make a private pastebin) and it doesn't have threading, but it's as simple as it gets

[gsull]

Another thing:

Besigner.com looks like a regular blog with multiple people being able to access it. Why not sign up for a Blogger account and set permissions for your friends to all be able to post to it? Again this doesn't include threading, but it will give you pretty much everything you see as Besign.com

It's like a blog, but for one difference, which is what makes it perfect for me: the latest post sorts everything to the top.  This would be like Blogger bumping a blog post to the top again every time someone comments.

Thanks for the other suggestions, I'll take a look.

Google groups is better than I remember it being, but still a bit of a hassle to just invite people to on a whim.

[gsull]

Also, a wiki would seem to be a good fit, but I've tried before, and the housekeeping for messy edits becomes a hassle, and everything breaks down.  Also, each person formats their entries slightly differently, which makes it hard to scan.

[Deozaan]

Also, a wiki would seem to be a good fit, but I've tried before, and the housekeeping for messy edits becomes a hassle, and everything breaks down.  Also, each person formats their entries slightly differently, which makes it hard to scan.

Did you look at Minki? It's unlike any other Wiki I've used in terms of simplicity and minimalistic functionality.

[gsull]

Maybe I'm using it wrong, but Minki seems pretty technically complicated.  Am I supposed to have to edit using the wiki-code?  That was the problem I had the last time I used a wiki.  People wouldn't format their posts, or they'd format them differently, and it would be hard to look at the site and instantly know what was new, and where the separate ideas were.

[dk70]

By the time you read this you could have send out 50 invitations  Fastest and easiest way of is jumping on ready to go stuff like Google/Yahoo/whatever Group thingy or fixed forum hosting like the one for phpbb etc. You cant go much above shoutbox level if you feel copy and pasting some email addresses is overkill. If you have own server and special needs there are probably better options, lots of scripts available. Not likely to be easier for you or members.

[gsull]

I found this:
http://www.getvanilla.com/

It's not exactly what I wanted, but it's closer than anything else I saw.