BuddyPress.org

@deltina –

Thanks for the compliment.

@arxpoetica –

I can see that you are passionate about this issue. It is good to see more people raise the banner of distributed open source social networks. Do you have much experience with Semantic Web protocols?
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An update on what I’ve been doing with regards to this issue:

I’ve been holding secret, high-level discussions in my ancient, giant sloth cave about how the BP community should go about implementing SemWeb protocols in BuddyPress. Well, it seems like I’ve been in a cave as it has been difficult to get people excited about the prospects of bringing the Semantic Web to BP as most do not yet understand the benefits. Fortunately, there is a small but growing group of people that are excited, that do understand the virtues of semantifying BP. @DJPaul and I plan to look into the best approaches to tackle the overall issue of BP semantification. He has also attracted another developer to join the cause.

There are more people starting to take interest as well. I spent part of today discussing with Henry Story the prospects of using BuddyPress as a test case platform for brining a solid Semantic Web implementation to an open source social networking project. One of the first projects might be a SSO (single sign on) plugin using WebIDs.

So, strides are being made, albeit small ones at this time. It is not clear whether WP / BP can be crafted to become a fully-functioning distributed social networking platform but it is the best place to start.

@rgauny, the BuddyPress.org theme is a custom child theme of 1.2 bp-default theme by Andy Peatling. As for other components and subnavs, you can already get most of them by just enabling such after you activate BuddyPress and creating a BP child theme or using a regular WP theme and installing BP Template Pack plugin. There are features in this site which might be released soon.

edit- oops @jeffsayre I took too long to answer

The theme for BP.org is not available. Andy created it specifically for this site. Here’s an old thread when BP.org had a different theme that explains Andy’s philosophy on this matter: https://buddypress.org/community/groups/how-to-and-troubleshooting/forum/topic/the-theme-for-this-site/

@andrea_r the thought just occurred to me: How would BP plugins work in this setup? I’d like to see plugins like @MrMaz‘s BP-Links keep sub-domain activity separate as well.

@r-a-y I’ve been MIA from this site for about a week. I just wanted to say THANKS for posting this!

@andrea_r I’m following this thread with great interest. I’m the guy @vee_bee referred to with a similar query/setup as being discussed here.

https://buddypress.org/community/groups/how-to-and-troubleshooting/forum/topic/single-login-with-multiple-bp-sub-domain-installs-is-it-possible/

Brief recap from my earlier post
Example:
petlovers.com
– dogs.petlovers.com
– cats.petlovers.com
– birds.petlovers.com
– fish.petlovers.com

You can see from the above example that most people would probably only want to see things relevant to their pet type and not be overwhelmed by all the other animal group activities.

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Glad to read that this is slowly being worked out by putting our collective heads together

You are always welcome to create your own default theme if you’re not pleased with the packaged one that comes with BuddyPress.
You’ll just have to spend more time creating your own theme!

Hi Jeff, I can’t make the chat Wednesday as I’m going to be on a plane between London and Hamburg, but I wanted to add to this:

1. wp-recaptcha — I’m working with the developer of this plug-in so that we have one fork that works everywhere, BP included. Given that this is the topic, let me try to get that basic code up. Even with simple recaptcha support, there’s a huge decrease in spam signups. It seems not to solve the smartest scripts, the ones that send PMs (at least not on our site), so I think once we get one recaptcha working, making the “failed” recaptchas more intelligent to avoid these automated bots would be great. Thanks for the ideas above — this is great fodder — so I’d encourage people to get involved on the same fork so we can put this into action sooner rather than later. Let me post a separate update within the next couple of days.

2. Since PMs are a big problem, and this thread is getting very, very ambitious, why not at least begin testing this with a separate plugin? I’d like to at least see something that stops mass-mailings and highlights that user, as that’d be an easy way to weed people out, at least as more comprehensive solutions are developed.

3. Reviewing core is probably worthwhile. A mistake in bp_signup_validate’s code was being exploited by hackers. I know this is part of 1.2.4, but I went ahead and applied the diff attached to this (now-closed) ticket to our current 1.2.3 install:
https://trac.buddypress.org/ticket/2289
— this made a big difference. I wonder if anything else follows this pattern, and how we might hunt it down.

Grand, wide-reaching plans sound terrific, but I’d hate if that derailed some short-term fixes; seems we can have both.

@Jeff_Sayre

Finally got around to reading your article – fantastic stuff. And, yes, it does make more sense to semantify BuddyPress rather than WP. I am very interested in getting involved with these efforts. I am presently swamped with getting the second edition of my Web 2.0 book finished, but when complete, am starting on the Web 3.0 book. All of the issues you tackle are so important to get out there to laymen – I am so excited to get moving on writing about them…

I think also that Facebook turned off FB-Connect a few months ago?

Closing this thread per Jeff’s comments, I think discussion should continue in the thread that Stas’ linked to.

#2) Copy bp-default’s header.php into your child theme and edit it.

Do not post your thread twice. It is not going to get you help any sooner.

https://buddypress.org/community/groups/how-to-and-troubleshooting/forum/topic/activated-buddpress-before-deleting-%E2%80%9Cbp-default%E2%80%9D-and-%E2%80%9Cbp-sn-parent%E2%80%9D/

@ruffrazor It’s as easy as putting it into the theme template files you require. Assume you’re building a child theme?

The default theme needs to showcase everything that BuddyPress can do. Like you point out, it’s down to individual sites to decide what BuddyPress features to use, which relates to what javascript will be required.

You definitely shouldn’t do direct SQL queries to add group members, like @travel-junkie says.

Reupload them and do not delete them in future.

@r-a-y Can you tell me how I can use this code on the other pages.

Members page
Groups page
Forums page
And Single Post Pages

By the way, it is exciting to see more buzz about all this on BuddyPress — I just hope it doesn’t fizzle. This is one area of development that actually excites me enough to insert my skillz/experience and help it along. (I actually tried it once before, but kind of went about it the wrong way, and didn’t really have a lot of help as consequence.)

@jeffsayre @jackreichert @deltina etc.

Can I just counterpoint?

Chiming in here. I’m waiting for @apeatling to also talk more about this issue. Somebody mentioned DiSo. As I understood it, DiSo was more than just trying to systemically build distributed social networking out of WordPress or BuddyPress, but trying to do so through the establishment of more widely accepted protocols, i.e., the “social stack,” which included things like OpenID, OAuth, PortableContacts, and so forth. (“Social stack” is less of a buzz word today, but that was part of the beginning.)

I partly agree with the sentiment about WordPress needing implicit ground-up structural changes for the implementation of better social protocols, however, part of the problem @ the time actually had more to do with a lack of experience as well the protocols were still being nailed down. For example, we’re entering a second phase in all of this, as OAuth 2.0 is in the process of being released as a spec, and a 2nd iteration of OpenID will be issued as OpenID Connect — part of the problem also in the first place was these two protocols weren’t designed at the same time, so they didn’t work together conjunctively as well, but phase two here has the benefit of a foundation, so they can now build off each other. (See http://openidconnect.com/ and http://www.webmonkey.com/2010/05/new-openid-connect-proposal-could-solve-many-of-the-social-webs-woes/ )

There were also several other issues in flux, a major one being discovery. XAuth is providing a temporary solution for this going forward. Other less-known, but increasingly important protocols matured or are maturing rather rapidly: Salmon, PubSubHubbub, Activity Streams, to name a few.

That said, I think @Jeff_Sayre has been a little bit of a voice in the wilderness on all these matters. I just read this blog post of his http://jeffsayre.com/2010/05/15/repackaging-the-promise-of-the-social-semantic-web/ and it hit the nail ON THE HEAD for what’s staring everyone in the face. Sometimes things are so obvious that it’s hard to perceive them, you know?

That being said, can I just make one plea? Sometimes I hear a lot of the main BuddyPress developers intimate that they don’t really like the protocols being developed toward this end…the technology is wrong, etc., etc., and then there’s sometimes talk of how to do it right or how to do it better than the social stack.

I don’t involve myself *too much* in development here @ BuddyPress central, but I’ve been following development from the beginning, perhaps most especially with an eye toward distributing the social network beyond just one BuddyPress silo, and I do have a fairly solid view of the history of both the social stack and BuddyPress.

Can I just offer that we try and go with the flow of the protocols already being worked on in other arenas? The Internet Identity Workshop is taking place tomorrow (Mon. – Wed), it’s 10th session in just five years, and so much has happened and will continue to happen — just look at what’s on the agenda: http://iiw.idcommons.net/Proposed_Topics_IIW10 (Main site is here: http://www.internetidentityworkshop.com/ ) It’s true that these tend to be a lot of big players, i.e., Google, Facebook, MySpace, and so forth. But a lot of the people @ this particular workshop started out working small (like on DiSo), and have the interest of the open source community in mind. I sort of feel like I’m preaching to the choir, but I do think it’s really important that we all not forget the work that has already been done towards establishing solid protocols. In other words, instead of bitching about how to do things right, I think we ought to come to the IIW table, so to speak. These new internet standards have come a long way since then, and we still have a long way to go, so lets help make that happen.