BuddyPress.org

With the limited exception of BP groups, BuddyPress offers only one role — that of user. The forums are controlled by bbPress code, integrated into BuddyPress, but it’s bbPress that is in control of offering additional roles. Even when bbPress is relaunched as a WordPress plugin, forum roles will still be controlled by bbPress.

BuddyPress is a social layer that sits on top of WordPress. As such, the notion of user and author are synonymous. What does all of this mean?

With the exception for BP groups mentioned above, BuddyPress is a user-centric platform where there are currently no-jointly owned or controlled subsets of data. Ignoring the overall Site Administrator, in BuddyPress, there is a one-to-one relationship between a given piece of datum and a single owner of that datum. The key is who owns data. That person is the one with ultimate control (ignoring the super admin). Even with groups, the original group creator is the owner of the group–at least until he or she adds another admin. Group mods do not own the group data, they just help to manage it. Now, if the original group admin leaves the group, the new admin becomes the sole owner.

So user roles are irrelevant to the operation of BuddyPress as it focuses on users and not user roles. It is a social networking layer after all and not a content authoring and management layer like WordPress.