BuddyPress.org

“There is almost no benefit whatsoever of Friends within BuddyPress …”

Buddypress was supposed to be social networking added to blogging. Friends could form groups and work together in blogs. Friending itself is probably most relevant for internal email. The one thing you need to make that work is beefed up member management beyond default WordPress:

– full real names instead of anonymous meaningless usernames
– extendable, flexible member data fields
– ways to manage member lists
– ways to manage member roles
– ways to manage relations between members
– privacy and security controls on member data
– front-end functionality for members to manage their own profile data
– front-end functionality for members to manage their relationships
– etc.

None of these points get the attention they deserve. Again, if you have the three solid elements (1) members (“users”), (2) posts, (3) comments, all the rest is just a matter of displaying the data in different views, including forum view.

The shift in focus from blogging to the old-fashioned bbpress forum structure further derailed the project. Adding social networking to blogging should have been the main focus.

“the best setup is having either Forums or Activity.”

I use neither. I’m trying to structure my custom 1.1.3-based theme around member profiles, blogs and groups with group blogs. My activity stream just reflects what’s happening on the profiles, blogs and groups; it’s not a discussion thread in itself – I think I originally broke the ajax and had to remove reply buttons etc…