Wanted: noob friendly forum plugin

[en0ch]

[3.0.1 actually .. Theme: 2010 weaver – shadows sub-theme]

Hi all,

I’m hosting a WP site for a very small non-profit organisation, and need some basic – and really only basic – discussion and notification tools. I could summarise what I need like this:

• ? full admin control of user settings
  ? notifications to all users of site changes / new pages / new posts / replies
  ? private groups (members added by admin) with discussions

Also – Most of my users are non-techno, so it would be preferable if they could participate in discussions using e-mail without needing to login to the site and use a forum interface. Traffic would be very low, and probably only very small groups involved. (I’m not a true geek either for that matter – but I’ve picked up enough stuff along the way to get by. My geek-speak is limited, however.)

So .. I’m looking for a tip on a WP forum plugin that would provide such basics – preferably with not too much geekery required.

I’ve tried Buddypress + a few BP add-ons. I like it – but I’ve hit a brick wall with group forum e-mail notifications. Tried a couple of BP plugins that claim to provide that function .. but it just isn’t working. Topics get created, users are configured to receive e-mails .. but no e-mails materialise.

I’ve come across references to other forum plugins .. e.g. WP forum server; Tal.ki; Zingiri; Mingle; Simple:Press. But I have no idea whether any of them would work, don’t know much about them .. and don’t want to waste time trying after the experience with BP.

So can anyone point me to something that should work? Thanks.