BuddyPress

Just curious to know how plugin authors plan to take advantage of the new buddypress.org setup that @apeatling has so graciously provided us with. I’ve already activated forums and provided Donate email addresses for all my plugins (both extremely awesome ideas).

I still am unsure how my workflow regarding support will work. On the previous incarnation of bp.org it was pretty easy to watch the latest posts thread for mentions of your plugin (at least if it was mentioned in a subject heading). Now, unless I’m missing something, there doesn’t really seem to be a master feed of all forum posts. You can visit http://buddypress.org/support/topics, which approximates the old forum view, but that doesn’t show items that people have posted in the group forums devoted to specific plugins. Similarly, if you want to make an announcement about a plugin, you can do it in the plugin-specific forum (where it’ll be targeted, but only seen by those who remember to check their My Groups activity stream) or in the Third Party group or Creating and Extending groups (where it won’t be targeted but will be visible to far more people).

Yeah, I think the forums need a little tweaking…

I think a paginated forum discussion loop with only the “legacy” groups – Creating & Extending, Installing BP, Gallery, etc. (or maybe all of them?) – at the top of the support forums page would be nice.

Then there could be just links to these group forums in list format below.
Or this list could also be put in the sidebar (similar to the Vanilla forums – http://vanillaforums.org/discussions ).

hi Boone
The master feed is still working

http://buddypress.org/forums/rss.php

I am still able to see all the updates via that. So I guess, that’s an Intelligent move by @apeatling.
Yes, It feels a little bit clumsy, but that is just a matter of days until we are going to get accustomed of it.
My only concern is, whether the users will be able to find relevant groups to post or will just wonder in the so many 100s of Groups.

Master feed doesn’t really replace the recent posts list, it’s an rss feed and formatted depending on your browser, in Opera that isn’t usable for me as a replacement.

I am very conscious of how changes of the magnitude do take time to settle down with from experiences with another forum that went through a similar conceptual change from original Vbulletin trad forum to a far more community orientated site using Drupal. One thing the regulars and mod agreed on was that to a man/woman we all entered the site via the Tracker page labeled ‘Recent Posts’ that simply kept a single list of all posts made across the sites subforums/groups for those of us that checked all posts this was and remains an absolutely fundamental and vital page to enable fast tracking of new or updated posts along with the ability to filter to our own responded or started topics/posts – something that I feel is going to be missed here?

@boone I guess now that your original thread on the Send Invites plugin should be considered closed? otherwise you end up having two separate areas to track and the attendant confusion that brings, but it feels slightly odd that I now have to find that plugin group, join and remember to keep track of it.

@hnla – I think it’s more important that you leave comments about a given plugin in a place where others are likely to see it (and you’re likely to remember to check them) than that you leave them in a “well-organized” space. Which is to say that you should continue to use the thread if you’d like.

@boone – not sure I tend to agree there, yes point taken it would suit my personal likes and wants, but suit the site/community? not too sure it does, based on the notion of duplicate threads and essential forum nettiquette that says duplicate threads are a bad thing giving rise to confusion. You will end up having multiple places to keep an eye on , I will ask a question already asked elsewhere, someone will make a salient point in one place and it might be overlooked? Just thinking out loud

I’d have to agree with @hnla here. It’s also too easy to leave a reply in the activity stream: http://buddypress.org/community/activity/
These replys don’t seem to get added to forum threads, so because of multiple posting areas, lots of useful info will easily be lost/looked over.

Comments and replies on the activity stream are just that – on the activity stream. They don’t feed back into the forum.

@boonebgorges

Trying to take this thread back to Boone’s original topic (and I think purpose), I plan on using the forum feature of each plugin’s group as the primary support area for each of my plugins–athough I may still offer a premium support model in another location. I’ll use the primary BP support forum Third Party Components & Plugins as a place to announce any new plugins, but I will do so only after I’ve set up a group for that plugin. That way, I can post a link to the plugin’s new group in my announcement thread.

One issue that remains to be determined is how extracting the discussion of a given plugin to its own support forum will detract from its buzz. In the old model, since all discussion about a given plugin took place within the main (as in the only) support forums container, it was a great place to have your work stay forefront in people’s mind.

It will be interesting to see if plugin discussion will end up in that plugin’s forum. I think it will but that raises the question that should the forum moderators move any threads in the wrong place? I think we should.

Once, of course, someone creates that functionality

Trying to take this thread back to Boone’s original topic (and I think purpose)

Yep, apologies it was mildly divergent, but felt somewhat pertinent to OP

“I think it will but that raises the question that should the forum moderators move any threads in the wrong place? I think we should. Once, of course, someone creates that functionality”

This functionality exists. I wrote a plugin that allows you to move topic threads. http://buddypress.org/community/groups/buddypress-forums-move-topic-planned-split-and-merge-topic/

I would maybe prefer disabling (or hiding) the activity stream tab in plugin groups and only having a forum.
I don’t want to see two modes of interactivity in the plugin group… just makes things a little harder to manage.

The problem with this idea is the plugin author would need to manually go in and enable the discussion forum.
Not much work, but just thinking aloud!

What I am most excited about is that this new environment will give Andy some seriously valuable feedback about human behavior in a BP world. TestBP is not about getting the most out of a community..it’s just a test bed. BP.org, however, needs to function like a well oiled BP-machine and, while I do like the direction it’s taking (esp the Group Plugin metaphor) I think Andy will be surprised that not all behaviors will be as he expected and the site & BP will have to evolve as a result. It’s all good.

I am shocked, however, that Andy left on the Activity stream Reply function for forum posts which which, by design, bifurcate the support conversations due to those users who live more in the Activity stream than Groups

“Andy left on the Activity stream Reply function for forum posts which which, by design, bifurcate the support conversations due to those users who live more in the Activity stream than Groups”

I agree activity stream replies need to be shut off here… and this is one for which there is an easy fix already available in the admin panel.