Creating a community . . . not sure if buddypress is for me

[katy_bug]

I have been charged with migrating a local community from a yahoo group to something else. I found buddypress and am completely overwhelmed. It’s just too much and I am not sure how to pare it down to what I want. This is what I want:

An about page that is static and explains who we are.
A static resource page.
A forum page for discussions.
The ability to send out a daily digest of posts.
To have ads appear down one sidebar.

I have thought about buddypress or a wordpress site with a bbpress forum. Like I said before, we are migrating a group that is used to a yahoo listserv and it has to be visually simple and easy to navigate.

What are your thoughts? Any other sites that are put together like this?

[Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)]

Sans BuddyPress, WordPress can do the following totally on it’s own:

An about page that is static and explains who we are.
A static resource page.
To have ads appear down one sidebar.

Emailing a digest of posts would be a plugin. FeedBurner can do it for you. So can https://subscribe2.wordpress.com/

A forum … well now. https://bbPress.org can be used to do this, but it’s a bit tech-savvy to integrate it with WordPress. A plugin version https://www.ads-software.com/extend/plugins/bbpress/ is being made, but it’s not done yet. There are other forum plugins, though.

See https://www.ads-software.com/extend/plugins/tags/forums

[katy_bug]

Thanks. I have used feedburner for a blog, but did not know that you could configure it to do a daily digest for forum posts.

I realize I could do most of this with a regular wordpress site, but I am getting stuck on the forum thing. I didn’t know that bbpress wasn’t able to be integrated with wordpress.

All I really want is a wordpress site with a simple forum added.

[katy_bug]

Any experience with Simple:Press?

[Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)]

bbPress CAN be integrated with WordPress. It just needs to be done so manually and you need to be a little tech savvy to do it.

[katy_bug]

What would your recommendation for a simple forum that is a step up from yahoo groups and has a clean and simple look. This organization has been using yahoo groups for the past 8 years and it if is to drastically different, they will not be happy.
I am dying for suggestions.

[Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)]

bbPress honestly is as simple a forum as you can get. The ONLY reason I don’t outright recommend it is because it’s in transition, and I’d hate to say you should go through the hassle of getting it set up, only to turn around and have to move to a plugin.