BuddyPress.org

OK, I know adding this to core might be a big project to take on, but it seems that if BP and WP are really going to be flexible CMS’s, this kind of functionality is needed.

Custom post types, member types, group types and blog types.

It seems crazy that most sites would want to moderate anyone getting a blog or starting a group about anything. What I hate about some of the ning sites I see is duplicative groups and groups about nothing. Poor quality blog posts everywhere. Not a good user experience if you ask me.

I’m nowhere near good enough to take this on, but it’s needed. For example, I need different member levels (e.g. teacher, principal, student) with different “rights.” Different group types (e.g. classroom, school, extracurricular). Different blog types (e.g. homework, school news, dances/parties). Students shouldn’t be able to create school groups and teachers shouldn’t create blogs on parties/dances. Something like Justin Tadlock’s Members Plugin could be used to manage rights of specific content types including the content type user/member.

BPCONTENTS was/is a step on this direction that should be available for all well organized social networking sites. The fact that Facebook doesn’t allow different levels of “friend” access is problematic and BP should do better. I hope this gets on the roadmap list or at least as a supported plugin.

[. . . stepping off of soapbox ]