I'm looking for recommendations for a private forum.

Currently, our group of 3 (which will probably stay that way) debate amongst ourselves and have been doing it via email, which is becoming a P.I.T.A. as forwarded messages keep getting larger and larger.

I've installed an SMF board before (through Fantastico) and found it fairly easy to maintain, and it still exists but traffic has died on it. I was thinking I can still use this board, but we want 3 memebers to be debating in private, where others cannot see our debates.

Or alternatively, I've been curious experimenting with MyBB, Vanilla, or PunBB. (or if you have a better suggestion, please add to suggestions)

My thing is this. The other 2 guys are quite busy and don't have time to "learn" a system. I just want something easy for the end user to use, but is private, secure and themeable (by ME, the 'resident expert', per se)

What do you guys recommend?

I do have a blog and I did put Wordpress' bulletin board, but its rather too basic, not allowing attachments and no WYSIWYG editor in the "post new thread" area. Plus I want it so the world cannot see us three debating. One guy's line of work is real sensitive in part of his identity.

Any ideas?

Thanks for any help you can offer.

Since you're already familiar with SMF, I'd suggest sticking with that. You can easily make a private forum for private discussions.

Of your other choices, I'd suggest giving MyBB (http://www.mybboard.net/) a go.

SMF is pretty good, sticking with that is a good choice imo.

three people total?

let these folks handle it >> http://www.yuku.com/

you can set your forum so only your small group can view and post.

Doesn't SMF have a feature to make the forums private to members only.? Where you have to login to see any forums like other boards.?
Or put your forum behind .htaccess.?
I am a member and assist in development of a small group who have a very simple and fast bulletin board, which has the feature to make all forums private to members only. Give us a visit and see if you could use it, its free open source and easy to customise: www.deluxebb.com (http://www.deluxebb.com)

My personal development forum is : www.killapix.com/deluxedev (http://www.killapix.com/deluxedev)

What about phpbb? I used to use that quite a bit. They have a version 3 I think that is out now, but I haven't heard much about since switching to vB.