Re: Future of BP
Andy / Jeff – in line with my latest topic-start in this forum … can you give us a statement on what BuddyPress is supposed to be?
When I first started trying to get it into play, I was led to believe it was a community suite that tagged onto WPMU, but that’s not true. Yes, it’s a community suite, but it completely takes over and dominates WPMU, and that’s not what I wanted at all for this project, where the core function of WPMU had to be dominant.
Now it may be that this position is due to the default BP theme and its layout etc, in which case more themes (that are site-purpose structured, not BP purpose structured, need released) – instead of themes that “look pretty” with BP, we need themes that are for xyz purpose of site, and lots of them – take a lead from the accounting softwares and the business-type templates they provide in their softwares.
Example – themes for clubs, for charities, for communities of e-tailers, or communities of pub and hotel owners – these types of groups want their core site function to be to promote what there club / charity / business does – which is a great use for WPMU, but not if BP takes over and subdues the blogs into oblivion with all the chat and community slap and tickle.
At the end of the day, there is no real business-oriented community software as such. Sure some softwares have been tweaked for it (e.g. LinkedIn) but it would be a great niche for BP+WPMU if the theme developers kept such considerations in mind when designing the templates.
Gaz
p.s. – how do I demote BP to be a plugin and subservient to WPMU – I still can’t figure it out.
