BuddyPress.org

@andrea_r I don’t want a forum, I want BuddyPress, just the way it is The extent of “forum-capability” BP delivers fully satisfies my needs. Maybe I’ve phrased myself badly in earlier posts. I don’t need BP to act like a forum; in fact, the reason I take such an interest in BuddyPress is because it acts differently, and better, if customized right. My only requirement is some sort of forum-like functionality that frequent forum users can relate to.

I see immense potential in BuddyPress as an open collaboration platform. I do believe though that traditional social networks do not encourage collaboration, maybe continuity in particular, well enough, and so there’s a lot to learn or borrow from other systems more commonly used in that context.

I did, through BuddyPress. Which then took them and shoe-horned them into groups instead of simply integrating them with the rest of the site.

In my 10+ years of social media experience I’ve never seen group-based forums that were successful at building community as effectively as ones that were configured in a more open manner. MySpace’s group forums, for example, are garbage. This is not the example anyone should seek to replicate in a social media platform.

Thanks @r-a-y. It could be done without a plugin by uploading the desired theme files into wp-content/themes/default folder to replace the files there. Then change the Theme Name of file of new default theme’s style.css to Theme Name: WordPress Default

Just keep a copy of the preferred theme in your computer so that whenever you upgrade your WP install, you upload your preferred theme files with the revised Theme Name in style.css again to wp-content/themes/default. Since upgrading WP occurs around 5 times a year or so, no hard task at all.

The only hitch is if the replacement theme has hardcoded paths instead of using relative paths and therefore would not work in folder name different from referenced files’ URL’s.

@sadr – the forums part from bbpress that is in buddypress is a very stripped down version of bbprerss.

If you want a forum, then use forum software. I mentioned it because I in particular, am having to deal with a LOT of new users to BuddyPress who were told it was a forum (for whatever reason) and are expecting traditional forum-like behaviour.

And right now, that is definitely an issue.

Hi everyone,

Well, as promised, I asked the kids and got as far as asking the first 3 class periods. The problem I ran into was that kids from my classes started talking to each other prior to coming in .. and a select few were just making things up. So, I stopped asking.

Here is the image of the classroom white board. One kid was at the board in each class as the teams read off their list of reasons for not using the site – or not liking the site – or things they wanted changed.

http://www.google.com/buzz/102401255420058194378/hsRtrNUnoGP/Posted-via-email

The funniest ones were –

“What website?”
“I don’t like to study”

Or this exchange:
Student 1: “Checked but didn’t see anything new”
Student 2: “When did you go last?”
Student 1: “August”

Anyway – The room became really quiet when someone said, “Google is faster” – and others chattered – “that’s true.”

Maybe buried in all of the feedback, from approximately 100 kids, there are a few gold nuggets. I already started working on the navigation.

I am having the same issue.

However, I am not using IIS. I am running Apache on a Windows server (a WAMP server).

Is there somewhere else I need to change configuration settings in this type of setup?

I have already tried resetting the permalinks and then activating BuddyPress to no avail.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Rich

codex.buddypress.org – if you’re logged into buddypress.org, you should be able to edit any page on the codex.

Yup, that function can be found in /bp-core/bp-core-avatars.php

Check out some of the other template tag functions in:

/bp-core/bp-core-templatetags.php
/bp-groups/bp-groups-templatetags.php
/bp-friends/bp-friends-templatetags.php
…
etc.

Btw, thanks for the funds

I would like to add my vote to fleshing out the docs. Having comprehensive docs (at least for template tags) could have saved people like me hours and hours of work. And sad to say, the sparse documentation is pretty much the only thing that’s keeping me from embracing BuddyPress again for my next social networking project…

As for contributing, I’m only semi-literate in how BuddyPress works but I’ll try to contribute what I can based on what I’ve learned digging through the code. If only there was a way. Why isnt there a wiki or something?

@r-a-y @peterverkooijen
Just to clarify: I’m not really for the actual inclusion of bbPress inside of BuddyPress. What I want is the ability to replicate forum-like functionality within the boundaries of what WordPress+BuddyPress can be extended to. I believe social networks can be the next generation of collaborative forums. That is the type of functionality I have envisioned for my still-hypothetical BuddyPress site anyways.

@peterverkooijen – If we’re talking semantics, you referred to me saying this:

“I definitely don’t believe [bbPress] is a “parasite” like you do.” (which I did write)

And then, you wrote this:

@r-a-y, this sounds pretty parasitic to me:

“… it should be possible (and rather effortless at that) to mold BuddyPress into a more forum-like environment …” (which I didn’t write)

This inferred that I believed bbPress was a parasite because it makes it look like I wrote that, which in fact I didn’t. Only you believe bbPress is a parasite. If you’re not trying to pick a fight with me, then write clearly.

That’s because the documentation relies on users like you and me (for both bbPress and BuddyPress).

Most of the template tags you can find in /bp-xxx-templatetags.php in the BuddyPress folder. It’s well organized enough to read and I usually just dig through the code to find what I need.

Btw… I do take donations! You could consider that beer money

@r-a-y, I didn’t say you did. I compared bbPress to a parasite as in a foreign organism that weakens the host (“… mold BuddyPress into a more forum-like environment …”). First step to heal Buddypress is to remove the parasite.

Edit: @r-a-y (“This inferred that I believed bbPress was a parasite”) No it doesn’t. WTF?! I’m not even picking a fight with you, just trying to clearly state my arguments about where BP should go.

@Sadr (“I believe social networks can be the next generation of collaborative forums”) They shouldn’t be. Social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn) are a newer way to do some of the same things forums used to do. Forcing them back into the classic forum mold only ruins what makes them work. They are different conceptual approaches/paradigms. You can’t just mix them.

Do you get an error message of any kind?

You can try disabling and reenabling the forum component. Login to the WP backend, navigate to “BuddyPress > Component setup”. Disable bbPress and save. Enable it again.

Also do the same thing with the BP group in question. Go to your group admin page, navigate to “Group settings”. Disable discussion forum and save. Then re-enable the discussion forum and save.

Try posting your forum topic now.

It all depends on what you want to do with your community.

Since you have no experience with WordPress, the BuddyPress for Dummies book might be a good way to start:
https://buddypress.org/2010/03/book-buddypress-for-dummies/

If you have some coding experience, it shouldn’t take you long to get up to speed. Although it would have helped to have some idea of how WordPress works, especially with themes and hooks.

Did you try posting a forum topic? That needs to be done as well.

Also activate this plugin: “BuddyPress Forums Extras – Forums Index”

@tinabeans – just tested the following snippet:

echo bp_core_fetch_avatar( 'item_id='.get_post_author_id() );

This is working for me on a deep-integrated external bbPress install. Let me know if this works for you.