BuddyPress.org

@foodin65 – You could make your main site’s theme into a BP child theme to make it easier to get the functionalities you want in your site and make it future-proof. Given that Andy has coded the BP Parent Theme with dynamic and multiple body classes as well as other styling hooks within the body content, you could target certain sections of the site with different layouts, it makes a lot of sense.

With child themes, updating BuddyPress is almost seamless. You would only need to add or update some selectors and/or declarations in style.css instead of having to find out almost each and every new BP feature and updating them in your WP-turned-BP theme files plus style.css.

Sounds like someone exploited a WordPress vulnerability on your site.

Are you using the latest version of WPMU / BuddyPress?

If so, did you upgrade?

You might want to read these posts:

https://wordpress.org/development/2009/09/keep-wordpress-secure/

https://codex.wordpress.org/FAQ_My_site_was_hacked

stwc’s summary of methods does seem to stop a lot of spam, but I’ve still been having some. I tried SI Capthca (https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/si-captcha-for-wordpress) but that seemed completely ineffective.

My latest weapon in the war has been to modify Invisible Defender (https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/invisible-defender) firstly to make it work with the buddypress registration page and secondly obfuscate its hidden fields by giving them random names and values:

http://bcbc.co.uk/mu/blog/2009/12/11/wordpress-registration-spam/

Yes, what is this “proprietary component”? Or is that information proprietary? LOL. I assume it centres around collaboration and / or document management perhaps?

Haha!

Yes, can I sound anymore stuck up than throwing around the term proprietary on an Open Source software forum.

To answer your third question first, yes.

As to your first two questions, I can only give you the most nebulous of details at this time. The component I’m working on is very specific to the site. It will be the primary collaboration and project management engine. So, it will not be something I will make available to the community. Besides, with the exception of using this component to become a direct competitor, it will not have any value to anyone else.

By document management I don’t mean something big and hairy like Stellent. I don’t think any Intranet would ever replace such a system not should it necessarily try. All I’m thinking is that in any kind of “Enterprise” solution, Groups should be able to do some level of collaboration on simple documents as well as offering basic downloads. How many times per day is the HR Department asked for a Benefits Claim Form for instance? So I’m just talking about commonly requested documents for employees. Not a massive database of Specs or Material Safety Data Sheets or what have you.

Another beneficial feature for enterprise would be the Jive concept of “Spaces”… which are nothing more than collections of groups. So your Head Office “Space” could have an IT Group, Service Desk Group, HR Group, etc.

But of course… depending on your needs… BuddyPress could work right now. “Enterprise” generally means decently sized corporations however… and in that space… privacy, security and some level of “document management” (as least having a small downloads area in each group) are essentials. Most of this is already in the BuddyPress roadmap. I think that in a few years… BuddyPress may well give products like Jive, Telligent, SocialText and other “Facebook for Enterprise” apps a run for their money.

You just need another theme for BP activated on the BP blog. That’s the terminology you’re looking for.

this thread might help:

https://buddypress.org/forums/topic/intergrating-bp-with-existing-wordpress-theme

https://buddypress.org/forums/topic/extending-wordpress-themes-post-experiences

As always, https://buddypress.org/forums/topic/when-asking-for-support

I think it depends how you define enterprise software.

In my experience working with Local Authorities in the UK, BP will be more than adequate to improve communication internally and externally. We are doing projects with Local Authorities/social care/health in the UK where out of the box BP would be 200% better than what they currently have. There key drivers for our customers are flexibility, speed, departmental control.

They normally aren’t looking for project management, document management as they already have expensive process driven software systems in place that are controlled by corporate IT. When we pitch we are not pitching that BP will do everything, indeed i would argue that it shouldn’t do document management, that’s not it’s strength. It should focus on improving the things it does really well.

Is there any reason why you made the buddypress site a subdomain rather than just being installed on the main blog?

Yes, what is this “proprietary component”? Or is that information proprietary? LOL. I assume it centres around collaboration and / or document management perhaps?

Jive even has simple project management built in… which is pretty cool. It’s not MS Project by any means… but it would suffice for most simple projects.

I agree that a stock install of BP does not currently offer a sufficiently robust suite of tools for the enterprise. That will come in time via core enhancements and 3rd-party plugins.

I’m currently developing an enterprise-level, collaborative community site using BuddyPress as the foundation. So, it can be done—but not without a lot of work. For my site, I am coding a proprietary component that will be the main workhorse of the community.

By the way, my BuddyPress Privacy Component is available right now. Although it is still in Beta, it is very solid and much further along than what most people expect in a Beta release. You can grab it here: http://jeffsayre.com/buddypress/

has anyone transformed this to buddypress xprofiles?

so that for instance specific tags/html is allowed on profile pages?

this would be really handy.

@idotter

Cool, liaise with life-stream developer twitter.com/wplifestream or Nicola :bp?

A you redirecting to the buddypress pages? You shouldn’t use the standard wpmu register and activation. I remember Andy saying that he fixed this, but I guess it isn’t working like it should yet.

Try this.

http://mirlo.cl/how-to/fix-for-signup-and-activation-pages/

@Bowe

Nice work! It is a welcome addition, and generous contribution, to the BuddyPress community.

@idotter,

WOW..LifeStream-plugin works with BP in what way? can you screen pic it?

liaise with the LifeStream-plugin developer or Nicola help?

I’d be interested in working on a Wiki-type system for BuddyPress.

I’d say that BuddyPress is a ways away from being ready for enterprise. No privacy / security settings and no collaboration features or document management. Privacy is coming… but I imagine that collaboration features are a long way off. Altho’ there is an active thread currently about someone trying to wedge MediaWiki into BuddyPress groups. Which would help.

Yes, there are a TON of intranet solutions competing in the Enterprise space now. Basically Wiki’s and document management within a social context… rather than a document context. Much more engaging. Everyone is trying to create the winning “Facebook for Enterprise”. PB Works, Jive and SocialText are just a few. PB seems not to be in the same league. SocialText is ugly and awkward on a lot of levels. And it’s written in Perl for pete’s sake. I’m not sure how they got so much mindshare. Jive on the other hand is spectacular. Amazing application. Well worth the piles of cash they ask for it (to enterprise anyway).

I agree. We are doing a number of Stakeholder Engagement programs with Local Government in the UK. The #1 driver for our customers is improving communication throughout a geographically diverse workforce. Local Government is awash with failed intranets/collaboration websites, with ms sharepoint the most common platform. There is big opportunity to build discrete tools like you say (project management/document management etc) on top of wordpress, buddypress. Buddypress will win because it’s focused on engagement not transactional processes. Getting the community engaged is the real challenge and Andy P and the wordpress team naturally understand that.