BuddyPress.org

@stwc I think you make an eloquent, objective point. While I think there’s some merit in it, I respectfully disagree. Yes, people are used to (in many respects) to the old b-board way of doing forums, so from that perspective, BP will be a tad foreign. Looking at it another way though – that old method shoe-horned users into combing though a giant list of things looking for what they were interested. As a tech dude myself, I can tell you I never “browse” forums because they are just not browsable. You have to search for what you want and then pour over unrelated threads. It’s too much work.

BP Groups is a new way of looking at things, for sure. BUt it allows you to “group” content, of which forums are merely a part, in a way that makes sense for people that want to associate with that content.

The model breaks down in some use cases but I have something like a 90 “love this new way” hit rate on the concept. Only a few have stated they want the old way (and BP’s forum listing solves that problem for them.

my .02

I am also of the opinion that if you design something with a supremely intuitive interface that just “works” in a very logical manner, it doesn’t matter how much you change the model (assuming it’s a step forward)