BuddyPress.org

“… just because buddypress or wordpress or whoever develop new features for an application doesn’t mean you are forced to use the new features. You don’t have to install the forums …”

The topic of this thread was about removing groups from forum. Groups imho are a natural part of a social networking architecture. Forums not so much. Most of the questions on this board these days are about forums/bbpress. That seems also where most of the developers attention is going, while there is almost no progress on what should be the core of a social network script for WordPress; member management, privacy/security, making BP WordPress 3.0-ready, etc.

Talk about “dropping rigidity and opening up to an amazing new flexibility and power” is pure nonsense. I’m not a programmer myself, but have you looked under the hood? Have you looked into the database? Do you know how BP is structured? Software can’t be all things to all people. It will never make you ice cream sundaes. Sure it’s nice to have built-in features, but there is always a trade-off. In Buddypress’ case it is growing structural confusion. Where would you draw the line?

I’d prefer a leaner core, a script that only adds social networking to WordPress and does it well. Integration with bbpress should go via WordPress, not as bolt-on to BP. Ideally WordPress would have an API that would make the members database just as easy to integrate with PunBB or phpBB if I wanted to.

“Personally, I see nothing wrong with a social network which allows unregistered users to comment with CAPTCHA …”

I’m sorry, but the whole point of a social network is that it is not anonymous. You can’t have unregistered users on a social network. The point of a social network is to allow members to interact with eachother in a trusted environment like they would in the offline world; you introduce yourself, it has your picture and some basic personal information, you can make friends, etc. Mixing in anonymous “users” destroys that purpose.

Anonymous comments are fine on a forum, which is about topics. I go to forum to find answers to PHP questions; I don’t care who posts a coding solution.

“I really like the idea of them all being mixed together, if nothing else just to see what can be done, breaking down boundaries …”

Sure there will be many use cases where you would like to mix social network with a forum, with Twitter-like microblogging, with event management, with galleries, etc. But why cram everything into Buddypress?

I needed a simple, flexible social networking script with a solid reliable core that I could combine with other PHP scripts for whatever else I might need. Since bbpress forums started taking over Buddypress has become useless to me.

Please read this:
https://buddypress.org/community/groups/how-to-and-troubleshooting/forum/topic/faq-how-to-code-snippets-and-solutions/?topic_page=2&num=15#post-41850

(Side note: I wish that FAQ thread was stickied properly!)

Are you using the bp-default theme? Check settings if you allow registrations. Also, do you have any kind of membership plugin which could interfere with registration.

@Peterverkooijen

If you believe BP causes more problems that it solves why do you use it? If you don’t like the features why don’t you turn them off?

Everyone should be developing BP in a direction to fit their needs. If you want a site worth visiting you can’t use out of the box solutions.

I don’t mean my questions to be augmentative or polemic, I just want to know what it is that BP provides that makes you endure your admitted frustration.

We do not have enough information to help you. Please answer these questions: https://buddypress.org/community/groups/how-to-and-troubleshooting/forum/topic/when-asking-for-support/

“Slowing down does not mean dying. It means they get tired. Tired devs make mistakes. they also have a big job – half the users want faster dev, the other half doesn’t. Vocal people want this change, two months later, more vocal people want the last change ripped out. See the problem there?”

Very understandable. Solution: Stop listening to all the feature requests and all the questions about forums/bbpress, event management, galleries, etc. Focus on the core: users, posts, comments. Make those solid and flexible, standardized as much as possible on what is already in WordPress, but with the member management and privacy/security you need for a social network. What are the minimum requirements to run a social network on top of WordPress? Boil it down. All the rest is for theme and plugin developers. Activity stream etc. is just one way to display data. Without a solid, coherent core it will only become a bigger mess as everybody piles on their hacks and ideas.

Hi, welcome to BuddyPress.

BuddyPress is a WordPress plugin and available for download within your WP admin panel. Within plugins, click on “add new” and search for buddypress. You can install it from there.

BuddyPress Documentation: https://codex.buddypress.org/home/

Also, there are a few things to be aware of – depending upon the version of WordPress and Hosting. For example, in your .htaccess, you may need to increase the amount of memory alloted to php.

A few steps and cautions
1. Make sure you have the database and files backed up.
2. If possible, practice on a local site or developer site before you try this on your live site.
3. Deactivate your other plugins first.
4. Check your permalink structure
5. Download and activate the buddypress plugin.
6. A new panel should appear in your WP-admin panel
7. Activate the default buddypress theme.
8. Activate forums (if you are interested)
9. Test your site
10. Activate one plugin at a time – and verify the site after each activation

Come here and find extensions – ask questions – etc

There will be a dev chat this next week, on Wednesday 30th @ 19:00 UTC.

IRC: irc.freenode.net
Channel: #buddypress-dev
Web-based IRC client: http://java.freenode.net/

We’ve had very few questions for the last few sessions, which is why they haven’t happened (if nothing to talk about, there’s nothing to talk about). Post on the agenda on this thread.

Again, if you’ve got a question you aren’t sure can go in the agenda because you haven’t posted before, feel free to check with me (paul at byotos.com, Twitter, on the forums here, smoke signals, etc) or any of the other forum moderator team.

@apeatling Andy regards commit access I would have thought that you already have at least four guys here that seem to have a pretty deep understanding of the code base involved would it not be a start and indeed lighten the burden on yourself and JJJ if they were to have commit access right away?

<quote Andy >ask your questions at the BuddyPress meetings bi-weekly (there has been a serious lack of questions lately, why?)<quote>

That might be due to the holding of these meetings not being that clearly mentioned? Might just be me being dense but where I was aware of them I wasn’t sure really where to go to participate (yes course I could have asked )

So part of the site should perhaps be used to announce these and perhaps provide a brief transcript or bullet points of the talks – recently came across Paul Gibbs’s blog where he did provide a transcript of one.

I don’t think any of us hate this site it just needs finishing and I’m sure you’ll agree it was upgraded, some work appeared to go on while the site was live then it was left in a half finished state? The site is vital to the project it’s it’s home and central focus but I doubt anyone would argue against that.

I’ve thought long and hard about how to address this thread after seeing the conversation so far. I’ll do the best I can.

Ever since I was given the opportunity to work on BuddyPress full time I’ve put every ounce of energy I have into the project. It has gone from nothing – literally fifteen lines of code to something that powers a number of large sites and a whole array of smaller ones. The community has sprung up since then and has grown fast, but it would not exist first without something that people enjoy using and want to discuss.

That has always been my number one priority, build something that people want to use. Without that we have nothing and all the work around the project is in vain. I am not a trained project manager, but up until now I’ve done my best to help the community flourish and feel part of the process.

Now, yes, I haven’t been working as much on BuddyPress for the past three months – anyone using Trac will notice that. I’m no longer spending all my time developing the next version of BuddyPress. I’m working on some features for WordPress.com, helping out with other tasks around WordPress along with continuing to develop the project. The hope is that some of the features I work on for WordPress.com can merge there way back into BuddyPress in future versions or as separate plugins.

The issue we have, and the whole reason behind this thread is that I’m still far too large of a percentage of BuddyPress as a whole. When I slow down or have other priorities the whole project suffers. It should not be like this, the community should not look to me as the final word or the only bringer of direction or progression. If I’m not around for a while BuddyPress should continue to flourish and move forward. JJJ is doing his best to help balance this, but he is only one guy, and a busy one.

To quote a past line from a certain Mr Mullenweg “the best way to dig a hole is to grab a shovel and start digging”. Discussion is great, but to see any change we need action. If you want a new feature or something changed, write a patch. Submit it to Trac, keep consistently writing patches, answering tickets and fixing bugs. I guarantee you will end up with commit access. Right now we have only 10% of tickets with patches, that’s not even close to enough.

If you hate the new site (I agree it’s a mess) then design some mockups, write some HTML wireframes, tell me how much it sucks and your plans to change it. Start a community discussion, but with the goal of a plan of action. I am more than willing to provide access to people who want to get stuck in, but endless forgotten lists of what needs to be improved will not change things.

If you want to write posts for the BuddyPress blog then start writing them, they will be published. If you want to have your say on the direction of the project as a whole then show up and ask your questions at the BuddyPress meetings bi-weekly (there has been a serious lack of questions lately, why?).

Action, action, action. There are many people in the community doing a great job, but if we’re going to reduce the dependency on the core devs then we need more people to step up and start digging.

For those of you that want to directly influence the future of BuddyPress, http://trac.buddypress.org. Make it your friend. Learn it. Love it. Live it. Give it a hug everyday and patch a bug.

The Trac is where you can post code snippets, or giant mega patches of code that you think should be integrated into BuddyPress. You can see the timeline of when people have done what, and see the outstanding bugs that need squashing before we can safely release the next version. The more bugs you fix, the more code you contribute, the more you are directly involved not only in the community, but directly in the future of the platform as a whole.

As incentive to help out, if your goal is to be a developer and make a career out of BuddyPress, consider walking into a meeting with a possible client, and when they ask what your level of involvement is with WordPress or BuddyPress, and you can respond with “I make it,” your chances of securing that client are pretty good. In order to help make BuddyPress, you have to actually help us make it, and you do that via the Trac. I can say this, because that’s how I did it with both WordPress and BuddyPress, and I’m down to help you guys do it too.

There are plenty of people that are highly active in the Trac that aren’t so much so in the forums, and vice versa. Since we moved BuddyPress.org over to 1.2, both Andy and myself have been busy with our own assignments that yes, do involve BuddyPress, but also involve other neat things like the WordPress.com “Like” feature and planning some neat things for a WordCamp.org redesign.

Truth be told, if /anyone/ is concerned about where I am or what I’m doing in regards to BuddyPress or the future of the project, there are at least 10 methods to contact me directly and I am totally happy and not annoyed by anything that has to do with BuddyPress. Drop me a line, let’s chat http://en.gravatar.com/johnjamesjacoby

To answer a few of the questions/comments/statements in this topic: Private Messages are turned off because spam bots have started targeting BuddyPress installations and we were getting hit pretty hard after we upgraded the site. Raise your hand if you got a PM from someone claiming to love you enough to help you with male enhancement. Regarding my absence in the forums, I’ve really just taken on too many clients and haven’t had the time to look backwards at support AND forwards at development at the same time. It won’t always be that way, but it has been lately and I like it about as much as you all seem to too. I love being in the forums and helping people out, and I’m sad I haven’t been able too recently.

Andy is the figure head of BuddyPress and serves as the guiding light of the project similar to how Matt does for WordPress and bbPress, but there is no shortage of capable people in the BuddyPress community that could take this project by the horns and make it their own at any point. I know I’m not Andy, but if I can pretend to be to help anyone when he’s not around, ping me.

Along the lines of what @matt said, I love using @nacin as an example. He stormed into the WordPress Trac and started contributing code and patching bugs. Some were great, and some were rubbish, but he learned as he contributed and within 1 calendar year he has merited his way into being a core committer for WordPress, and contributed something insane; like 60% or more of the commits on the WP3.0 branch are his doing or somehow as a result of his hard work and commitment to the project. While there is only one @nacin, there is plenty of room for any one of you to be very @nacin like.

By the way, if there is an election and I’m voted out, I’m not leaving without a fight. You’ll have to chase me out of town with torches and pitchforks.

@gregfielding Your comments are apposite . I did start a thread (you may well have responded in it) trying to get thoughts like this expressed in one place in the hope that there could start to be a little greater community spirit and in the hope the lead/core developers could perhaps read and ask/answer questions from time to time – more interaction between core team and those actually trying to use the app in the wild, it was also meant as a check and balance to the thread started on the BP API as in that thread I saw the potential problem with BP being fundamentally mid tier heavy and lacking in input from front end developers and those that have a specific grasp of UI and Site Archetecture (yes I realise that the latter could be argued to be in the hands of those taking the app and building the sites, but not wholly so!) so your post above would have sat very well in that thread.

If you are running the latest version of BP, then you can run WP/WPMU as long as they are 2.9.2+. What are the problems you are having?

well work out how to encourage all those others to help?

Tech forums nearly always function around a core dedicated team that answer the majority of questions, a team that is often no more than a half dozen strong, 99% of forum users tend to be seeking help rather than trying to help, that’s just the way of things sadly, it was meant to be otherwise but the road web development has taken down the templated, copy ‘n’ paste, script snippet, library code has ensured that there are more people stuck at a a level of knowledge that they will not seek to escape.

my response is based on I’m a complete noob, lots of people had read the post which asking a simple question and I would guess 75% view could have taken the time to answer. There is no way to build a responsive support community if only 2 or 3 people are answering all the questions. I have a some experience with phpbb3 and a little with SMF& Joomla, the questions at those support sites usually get answered quickly. Hard questions could take days.
The main point it is blessed are those who give, not just receive.

When you integrated this with Thesis what version of BuddyPress were you using? Were you using WordPress MU or regular WordPress?

I’ve been playing around with this today. I am running regular WordPress 2.9.2 with Thesis 1.6 (need to try 1.7 but he really changed things there).

I installed the BuddyPress Template Pack plugin and went to work.

I don’t think you do the thing with the bp-custom.php file anymore, right?

I followed the instructions and copied all of the templates to my /wp-content/themes/thesis_16/ folder.

Then I started digging into how Thesis outputs its content and started updating all of those templates with different HTML markup and calls to Thesis functions to get headers, footers, and sidebars, etc.

So I got the pages like Members, Groups, Activity, etc. looking OK, but not pretty. There is going to be a TON of CSS development needed to make this look as pretty as it all does here.

The thing I’m not yet clear on is how to get it all to flow under one tab like it does here with the Community tab?

And I have LOTS of other questions….and work to do to make it fully functional and tightly integrated into the navigation and flow of the site.

Is it even worth it I’m wondering?

Just thought I’d share. I’d love to find out someone has already done ALL of this and can provide instructions, or files…would be worth something I think!

@LPH2005 Cool. What did you use to embed the Practice Tests at http://www.thechembook.com/practice-tests/ and what application did you use to create the tests? I’m liking it a lot. Just answered some questions and managed to guess some correctly

Probably caught this during your modifications – the link “Chemistry Text” leads to headers not sent page at http://www.thechembook.com/wiki/index.php/TCB:_Chemistry_Online_Textbook

Here is a simple guide:
http://sparun.in/a-simple-buddypress-guide/

Here is a more involved guide:
http://premium.wpmudev.org/the-buddypress-manual/

Hope it helps… BTW, I’ve posted questions that have gone unanswerd on this site for days..(some weeks) Sooner or later somebody answers, if not -that’s the way it goes when you’re not paying for support and your using an open-sourced product. The guys at http://premium.wpmudev.org/ offer paid support if you need it. Also the guys at http://bp-dev.org/ will hire out for projects. The core group of coders here are pretty amazing…

After seaching for a month as to what the best social site software is for my use, I kept coming back to Buddypress because it allowed me the freedom to do what I wanted… The others were very restrictive in their “canned” solutions. I’m pretty happy so far. AND very much looking forward to the major update of WordPress 3.0 Stable, coupled with Buddypress NEW Stable… it looks as though all of the problems that I have had are going to be fixed in a month or so…