Re: What you don't like about BuddyPress
The one thing I’m wondering about, once 1.1 drops (looking forward to tomorrow, Andy!), is how my users (if the site I’m building takes off) will adjust to the overall way of thinking that Buddypress (and social apps in general these days) tend to bring to the fore.
What I mean is that the interaction model is more things-are-presented-to-me and less I-am-searching-for-things. The way my brain works, I tend to organize myself mentally in the latter way — I want to find a piece of information or a conversation or a comment or something, and am hungry for a clear way to get to it. A more static way of viewing the structure, I guess. I’m old.
But Buddypress and (to pick an example, Facebook) are more about the ‘flow’, I think. About jumping in and having ‘oooh shiny!’ moments, and moving more fluidly through the web of interactions.
They’re both perfectly good ways of organizing things, of course, and for the tasks at hand, Buddypress is great. I guess my worry is that it will be confusing for users when it comes to things like forums and the traditional architecture of them, but I’m hoping that with 1.1 it will all come together smoothly. I’m really excited about the future of the app and WP in general, and very hopeful that the site I’m working on (which I’ll pimp when it’s ready, of course) will gather a vibrant userbase. The community I’m targetting really needs it.
Edit: reading this which is, I guess hot-off-the-presses doco, I’m thinking running a traditional forum using bbpress alongside the group-attached forums might be an option, if it’s not too confusing. I’m guessing it’d be pretty easy to port the Buddypress styling over to the ‘sidecar’ forums to make it all look right… we’ll see!
