BuddyPress.org

Wich file format do you use for your list ? Where is this list taken from: wordpress, private list,… ?

Pehaps you could use this plugin if you used CSV ?

For more details, check on WP codex how to achieve this task. BP shares users with WP and is not concerned directly by your question.

Try this:

function mohammad_remove_private_message_button( $button ) {
$user_id = bp_loggedin_user_id();

    if ( $user_id == '37' ) // the user ID
	$button = '';

     return $button;
}
add_filter( 'bp_get_send_message_button', 'mohammad_remove_private_message_button', 1 , 1 );

More details here:

[Resolved] how hide tab only for user? not remove/disable

Thanks for the suggestion, @earl_d. I had tried it already, but at your suggestion, I tried again. I did find one user error on part that was partially responsible for the fact that it didn’t work previously (the root group forum had a visibility of “Hidden”, which breaks makes the topic inaccessible to non-admin users). But still, your suggestion didn’t work for me.

TLDR: I got it working, mostly, though not entirely, and not using the approach you suggested, but your suggestion sent me down a fruitful path that ended up working out. See Scenario 4 below. Posting all of this for the benefit (hopefully) of others that may come along some day trying to work through the same issue.

(BTW, the way I interpreted your suggestion was that I should set the top-level group forum to have type=category instead of type=forum. In any case, here are my results…)

Versions

1. WordPress: 4.6
2. bbPress: 2.5.10
3. BuddyPress: 2.6.2

Scenario 1:
(a) Create the BP Group without an associated forum.
(b) Separately, later, create a forum with type=category
(c) Go to the BP Group’s settings to try and associate the Forum to the BP Group

Fail: The forum drop-down has the category forum greyed out, probably because it’s type=category.

Scenario 2:
(a) Create the BP Group *with* an associated Forum (which will automatically have type=forum)
(b) Separately, later, go edit that new Forum’s type, setting type=category
(c) Navigate to the forum’s page within the group. Say’s “the forum is empty.”
(d) Add a new sub-forum type=forum
(e) Create Topic A in the sub-forum
(f) Navigate to the group’s forum again (as a non-admin user)

Expected: Topic A should appear
Actual: Topic A does not appear

(g) How about directly linking to Topic A? Maybe Topic A is accessible to the user, but somehow the template simply isn’t outputting it under (f) above?

Expected: Topic A should be accessible
Actual: Topic A is accessible

Therefore: the user can see and interact with Topic, but BuddyPress doesn’t know about it as being part of the forum.

In retrospect, what seems to have actually happened here is that the original group of type=forum was regenerated and associated with the BP Group. So our topic is probably not showing up in the Group because it’s parent is the sub-forum of a forum the forum that is no longer associated with the group.

Scenario 3:
I thought: If sub-forums don’t work, then maybe multiple sibling forums could work. The Settings page for BuddyPress obviously only allows you to attach one forum, though the data model seems to allow for multiples. However, after slogging through the code, it’s clear that the current version of bbPress thwarts the adding of multiple forums. In at least two places that I saw in the code (like includes/extend/buddypress/groups.php), you have something like this:

// No support for multiple forums yet
$forum_id = (int) ( is_array( $forum_ids ) ? $forum_ids[0] : $forum_ids );

So even if you were to completely bypass the user interface and do a hack of some kind to attach multiple forums to the group, this sort of code would thwart the hack.

Scenario 4:
So what if we go back to Scenario 1, but set up the initial group-associated forum with type=forum, instead of type=category. It would then be selectable in the admin UI, or could just be created automatically upon creation of the group.

(a) Create a new private group with an associated forum
(b) Go create a new private forum and set its parent to be that initial group forum
(c) Create a topic in the sub-forum
(d) Navigate to the forum within the group as a non-admin user

Expected: The sub-forum should be visible and navigable
Actual: It is! The user can click through, see the topic within the sub-forum, and reply on it.

Conclusion: Success! This is the best and most functional scenario thus far.

Key differences from what I’d tried and failed before:

1. All forums involved have to be set to Private visibility. If Hidden, then some aspects of this may success, but others will fail.
2. The forum that is associated with the group will have to be type=forum, not type=category. But I wrote a little plugin that disallows creation of new topics within a forum, without having to mark it CLOSED (thereby also disabling comments). So this will functionally turn this top-level group forum into a category/container forum anyway

Caveat: I have noticed that when my admin user replies on the topic within the sub-forum, the BP Activity is created as expected (seen in the admin screen under Activities), but it doesn’t show up in the BP news feed of my non-admin test user. The other way works, though: if my non-admin user posts a reply to that topic, then this activity shows up in the news feed of my admin user. I need to debug that.

I have the same need/concern.

Unfortunately, I think the suggestion from @openring to use https://wordpress.org/plugins/bbp-private-groups/ won’t work. I’ve looked closely at that plugin. It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with BuddyPress groups. Rather, it seems to have to do with creating it’s own role based access groups. So that’s a way of having more access control over your forums, which is valuable in and of itself, but it doesn’t pertain to BuddyPress.

perhaps this might help

https://wordpress.org/plugins/bbp-private-groups/screenshots/

Sounds like you’re using a theme that’s stopping this or when you publish a post you have it set to private.

It’s more for WordPress forums given posts are a WordPress feature and not a BuddyPress one.

Look at your theme files, index.php and look for anything that looks like it’s making those posts only accessible to logged in users. Something like is_user_logged_in().

After chat disruption and sudden 404 errors on all pages, let’s continue here.

All your groups are listed here: http://thebettinguniversity.org/groups/

Most are private and the 2 i found which are public have only one member: the group admin.

I you’re the site admin, you can access to these groups.
If you’re only a group admin, you can only access the group you’re a member/admin of.
You must be logged-in to get access, whatever your status.

For more information about groups, read the codex please.

Groups

Seems also that you have no member page.
Go to BP settings and check that there is a page for members, a page for group, a page for register and one for activation.

Check here:

Configure BuddyPress

Have you tried this plugin: https://wordpress.org/plugins/bp-simple-private/

There is nothing to do ! Private groups are even private. If user 1 is only member of group A and NOT of group B, user 1 can only act with group A forum.

Aside, question related to bbPress should be asked on bbPress forum, not on BuddyPress forum.

Private niche social network to give an idea of the kind of features that might be indicated

again as i said before. No idea on what kind of features u would be looking at providing to your users

minimize by replacing any plugins that I can with code

that wont help. code or plugin is mostly the same thing IMO if you looking at speed of ur site