[miketempleton]

Today I have a news-type website (http://www.techsentry.org) built on the standard WP.org setup. We have categories for different types of posts, pages, etc. We also have a WPMU install (http://blogs.techsentry.org) running separate from the main site, powering our user blogs.

After hearing about the additional community-building features of BuddyPress and how it allows members to engage in more interactions with one another, I would like to move to that platform. However, I am unsure of how I should proceed.

Here are the options I am considering:

1. keep the WP blog, ditch current WPMU and set up new BP at http://my.techsentry.org
2. migrate current WP blog and current WPMU blogs into a single new install of WPMU with BP

For #1, that still leaves me two separate installs, which will probably be a pain.

If I go with #2, running everything under a single WPMU install, can I still manage my main site content under the root directory? I realize I won’t be able to keep our user blogs under the blogs.techsentry.org subdomain, but I want the main site content permalinks to stay the same as they were originally.

Also, if I want my front end to look much like it does today, can I take advantage of the “community” page from BuddyPress by assigning it to a page under the root?

I appreciate anyone help/feedback you can give me. I am anxious to pull the trigger on this, but need these basic questions answered first.

Thanks.

[r-a-y]

It depends on how integrated you want your site to be.

If existing members can’t login to the main techsentry.org site, then I’d just install BP on the blogs.techsentry.org subdomain WPMU setup.

However, be aware that a BP setup under the “blogs” subdomain will have permalinks like:

eg. http://blogs.techsentry.org/members/USERNAME

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#2 would work. I’m currently migrating a standard WP site to WPMU for the sole purpose of using BP and user blogs. If you have to alter a few settings to get things right, but your permalinks would stay the same.

#2 is the hardest to implement, but the benefits are single sign-on from one point of access.

It all depends on your needs.

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Not really related, but as a usability thing… you should preferably list your blogs when people land on the blogs.techsentry.org subdomain homepage.