Re: Why is it a bad idea to copy “bp-default” theme?
When BuddyPress is updated, changes are often made to bp-default, either to fix bugs, make styling tweaks, or support new features. If you are not inheriting the version of bp-default that is bundled with BuddyPress (in other words, if you copy the entire theme into wp-content/themes and use that instead), then you either won’t get these updates, or you’ll have to manually apply them.
Using a child theme is great in this way. If you use a child theme, you are only supplying the files that you plan on changing, while the rest of the necessary template files are automatically inherited from the parent (in this case, bp-default). This is an especially good idea if you’re only going to make small, CSS-ish changes to bp-default.
