[@mikepratt Participant 16 years, 9 months ago]

As much as I agree that you want to keep it simple, the last thing I want to do is a. auto-generate usernames (you have to tell them and they have to remember – let them decide) or b. parse a field into various name fields (parsing is just begging for errors – too may what-ifs)

FYI – Facebook has you do the same 4 fields you mention you are doing. Fine. But look deeper: they then auto-generate a username. why? who knows since you always login with an email address. Additionally they auto-gen a drop down list of “display names”

So what’s the diff between me and FB? I let you pick your display name up front in addition to your username. Ideal no but better than the alternative…for me.

Bottom line is: let’s keep this discussion to how to do our own work arounds. The core way of doing does not appear to be changing. Fine (we can always leave the BP-sphere) Instead, let’s make it work.

I hearby declare it off limits to refer to Andy’s decision not to include firsname/lastname ever again. We get it.

[@mikepratt Participant 16 years, 9 months ago]

Why not do the following (as we have)

1. Have 4 name fields in BP registration

1. username

2. 1st name

3. last name

4. display name (the bp required field)

Make them all required. We describe “display name” to everyone as “how you want your name to be viewed throughout the site’ If we had a choice, we’d get rid of it and mash 1st and last names together for display purpose. On the other hand, we have also seen many users do the following:

1. username -> jim1974

2. James

3. Smith

4. Jim Smith

Obviously, this allows for nicknames and with a little prodding, you get people entering nicer monikers than “ladiesman269”

Now, with the (lame) fact that WP user table is actually different (not sure why it wasn’t co-opted for BP purposes) All you have to do is create a function that writes the xprofile field values for 1st and Last name over to the WP table, in addition to setting the “display name value accordingly.

a thousand user later and no one has complained.

[@mikepratt Participant 16 years, 9 months ago]

I don’t know if I necessarily need to generate new data but I’d like to have teh BP name show instead of the username on blog comments. Probably as simple as replacing the call that shows the username in comments with a query feeding in the username and returning the first and last name, if only for display purposes

[@mikepratt Participant 16 years, 9 months ago]

I also don’t have any problem paying but agree that the business model is anti-user. In addition, there’s something not quite right with this Given their dedication to the BP/WPMU community and all that’s going on, you’d think they’d be right in the thick of these discussions but all I hear are crickets from the WPMU team. I know they’ll say “but we’re so active commenting on our own site” Yea, well the bigger conversation is here and if we aren’t your potential customer base, who is?

[@mikepratt Participant 16 years, 9 months ago]

@David Well, I’m stumped. I am on the same exact install as you and I get he admin panel for auto join when I click on my link. Email me at mike @ mikepratt . tv and I’ll try and figure it out.

Of course, I am now getting

BuddyPress is ready. You’ll need to activate a BuddyPress compatible theme to take advantage of all of the features. We’ve bundled a default theme, but you can always install some other compatible themes.

on 1.2-rare with my theme activated (even though it’s an untouched clone of default. Who knows

[@mikepratt Participant 16 years, 9 months ago]

@david works fine on my bleeding 1.2. So yo have it set up based on a particular field that you associate in the admin panel correct? And then a new user signs up and it does not auto join him to that group?

[@mikepratt Participant 16 years, 9 months ago]

@Bowe You already have that option (if I read you correctly) Just use our Auto Join plugin. Create a Hidden Group (no directory) and then go in and use the regressive join feature we added to get all your existing mbrs on. Then you can drive activity form that hidden group. Perhaps provide special links to the group on various pages as necessary to make it easy for mbrs to get the info they need from that group

@david Lewis Our auto join plugin does field mapping (we use it for Class Year and Cadet Company) So you could just use yours for committee selection. No?

[@mikepratt Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

Erwin IS to be commended. Great guy.

So what is up with Ning? How have they responded? They have been traditionally “our way our the highway”

[@mikepratt Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

Shai – you are a hero for trying to fix their work (I know this is a really important feature)

Does anyone know what’s up with the actual dev team? (and did anyone find out what was meant by the “Sponsored by Automattic” tease on their site?

[@mikepratt Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

You will rip your fingernails out after only a few weeks with Joomla. Enjoy

[@mikepratt Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

I just sent Erwin Gerrits (the dev) a personal email at least trying to find out if this has been abandoned so we can commit hope elsewhere

[@mikepratt Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

Erwin Gerrits of bp-events fame http://www.erwingerrits.com/?page_id=799 had, at one point, used the Google maps api to add map functionality to the plugin.

What we should really do is build a plugin that grabs ever field you specify, in the order you state mashes them together into the form of an address and then plots them on Google maps.

[@mikepratt Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

@jjj You confuse Group with “grouping of friends” I get your point but you wouldn’t create a group on TestBP.org just to group your friends. That’s not what a group even means. It is an aggregation around a concept or a topic that people self associate/ask to be a part of or are invited to associate with. It’s like a little contextual club within the site. What you are speaking of in your example is a grouping of friends which the BP Api should allow for and hopefully will. The you’ll be able to filter by friends or groupings of friends. That becomes personal. On the group side, you can join Groups and then say “keep me up on all that happens in said Group” or better yet, show me activity in Group X by my friends only.

Friending someone does have meaning. it means you care about that person’s activity. At this point people who try to shoehorn the traditional definition of “friend” into the social media-sphere will end up pulling their hair out. It was a co-opted term from the start. We have to live with that.

All said, John, I am your friends wether we click a button or not

[@mikepratt Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

@Mrmaz well spoken

[@mikepratt Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

@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)

[@mikepratt Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

@shaisimchi So given the field issue I described in my last post, which ones do you choose and how does it possibly work? City? Zip Code? Do you input the ENTIRE address as a field? Curious to how you make this work.

[@mikepratt Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

I hate to be harsh, but this plugin is un-intuitive and without instructions or explanation.

For instance, you are supposed to select the “which field represents the users location” Well, given there is a field for address, city, state and zip possible….what do you choose? Most Geo plugins use a mash-up of the complete address to search for an accurate location of the user.

The plugin has signs of promise but questions remain. …like what’s up with the “Sponsored by Automattic” ??

[@mikepratt Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

@Maz – I may be going out on a limb here, but reading thru all the text here and on trac, I’d be shocked if this proposal went anywhere. There’s nothing remotely close to any kind of support. Great debate, sure, but everyone in favor is really just looking for a twist on the “friends” interpretation…just as you say. My 2 cents.

[@mikepratt Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

The BuddyPress Registration Options is, indeed, a useful plugin. It does not work on 1.2 bleeding but hopefully will be updated

[@mikepratt Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

@DJPaul Hear, Hear. It is a common tactic of those who sling negativity and personal attacks to resort to a cry of “it’s a grave offense to criticize” when they are called out on it.

The bottom line is that no system is perfect. It’s certainly not all things to all people. Sometimes a component seems more “core” than others (based on it’s universal desirability) Gallery and Events fall into that category. Because of their importance to so many, the decision on which one to go with is a big one for most of us. hence the discussion.

So the discussion becomes, which direction should we go (with an image gallery, for example) NOT Oh and BP sucks so bad , etc.

So let’s hope everyone can take DJ’s advice and get back to discussing image options in BP.

btw Brajesh’s Gallery goes beta today. FTW

[@mikepratt Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

@Peter Perhaps you are better off using Ning. The folks on this site are focused on moving the BP ball forward and you seem to relish using your 10 years of journalism experience either berating others or BuddyPress but certainly not in offering help to Andy or others.

[@mikepratt Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

@peter BuddyPress does have a way to store 1st name and last name….custom fields. Andy didn’t need to build it in. The only difference b/t BP and Facebook here is that FB lets you login with username as well. I’m sure you could write a plugin to replicate that functionality. Beyond that, they have 1st and last name fields…just like I do on my BP site…as well as a “display field” You can manage event registration by username if you choose but, since it’s your site, you could easily require 1st and last names.

You have a misguided view of what BP is and what extensibility really means here.

I don’t see Zenphoto rewriting their excellent, mature script to become a plugin for Buddypress

The ZenphotoPress plugin is actually very effective

Make up your mind.

[@mikepratt Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

@Peterverkooijen pics and events are hardly “bells and whistles” Why do you regard this effort as “cramming” it into a plugin or even the core? Are you really unsure as to the value of events and pics in a BP community site? You always claim NOT to be a programmer but have no problem taking shots at the evolution of the core. The member mgt is straightforward enough.

There are plenty of great gallery plugins out there but member integration is necessary (doesn’t mean difficult)

[@mikepratt Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

@David , @travel (can I call you Travel?

I think you’re both right and I will probably adopt Gallery. As for bp-events, Erwin is AWOL and I ma looking for options

@Brajesh from the sound of things, Gallery appears to be a fantastic product for which you deserve Comp. I am particularly impressed you are considering tackling the issue os image/face tagging which, imho, is responsible for real interaction with images when people are involved.

Looking forward to it

[@mikepratt Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

While I am inclined to go ahead and pay for the gallery as it does look promising, I admit to anxiety about one thing:

BP has introduced a new phenom – namely….in the past when we ran our our WP powered site and installed some 3rd party plugins, we relied on their development to keep up with WP core dev. If it didn’t, well, that sucked but we could go find another and the only suffering was by us and possibly our readership. NOW…there is an additional twist…our members. Case in point – I want to commit to a Gallery plugin. So let’s say I do and get users to upload thousands of pics. All is well. Dev stops. BP progresses and gallery breaks. I am faced with either correcting myself, finding another and hopefully resurrecting all the images, comments, galleries, etc (prob impossible) or <shudder> asking people to re-upload (not happening)

I am ok taking risks but wondered how others deal with this issue (same applies for the seemingly stalled events plugin)