BuddyPress.org

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OK, monster essay ahoy. This is a big part of why I think ‘forums’ are an important component of the overall experience, no matter what we call them.

Here’s the meat from a couple of comments I made before on this subject, here on this very forum:

I think web community, more perhaps for people who are not so much of the disposable, in-the-moment, ritalin-riddled, post-it-and-forget it generation, needs to have feet solidly planted in not only the ongoing ephemeral stream of conversation, but also in a more long-term, permanent ’space’ of shared history, shared interactions that are performed in public and can be gone back to, interactions that more than any set of xprofile fields or avatars build a mutual understanding between users based on personality and past discussion. Build, in other words, community.

and here’s another:

Different users use sites in different ways, of course, and the Activity stream is certainly one user story that shouldn’t be ignored. But, as I’ve said so many times before over the past almost-a-year, forums, in one sense or another, have a sense of permanency for users, a ‘virtual place’ they can return to, and I believe should be the anchor of a site like this and many others, where the ongoing stream of activity and making-friends for superfans and power users is less important than information being discoverable and discussion interactions being aggregated rather than just fading away. I am growing more disenchanted with the apparent lack of attention being paid to what I believe for many is essential for a successful community site — a featureful forum setup that is the steady beating heart of the swirl of activity.

Yes, I know the bbPress option is suboptimal as a solution, but it’s what we have to work with, and it can’t be ignored or passed off to bbpress.org, because we’re not running bbPress, we’re running an interface free, bbPress-plugin-incompatible fork of it, in essence if not reality, and I really do believe that more attention needs to be paid to the limitations of it as a component of BP and ways to make it work for community-building and user satisfaction.

Anyway, back to Activity. On true social network sites (whatever that means, exactly), it makes some sense that things are ephemeral, that interactions disappear beneath the fold, because, hey, it’s all about interacting with people, socially.

But the focus of this site (and most sites I might consider building with BP) is not just making friends and having a grand old social time. It’s sharing information, asking questions, discussing solutions, offering and asking for assistance, and it’s important that the interface those interactions be structured discoverable for people who are going to have the same questions in future as BP adoption grows, and the toolset for creating them be rich, both from the administration and user-facing perspectives.

How many times do we see the same questions being asked, basic or otherwise? To answer my own question, a lot. That’s just human nature in part, certainly, but it’s also, I think, because the tools we have for using these forums are vestigial, and people just don’t have the information they need at their fingertips. User confusion and frustration will kill a community faster than goatse images. We’re all so used to using this app that I think we lose sight of just how daunting it is for new users. The site I’m building for an existing community on a different platform has taught me that, very quickly.
—

Some sites, some userbases NEED structure for conversation. This site we’re on right now is an example, as I outlined above.

Now the irony here is I was able to go back and find those comments (having to use Google because the BP site search didn’t work, I note) because they were made as parts of conversations in a permanent, permalinked — forum-style — framework.

Consider a possible taxonomy of user activity and interactions on websites (a huge project, of course — I’m just trying for a sketch here).

At the bottom the very bottom would be simple records of activity.

Next higher would be Facebook-y pokes and friend-button mashings and things like that — non-verbal pings, basically, but deliberate.

Next up would be status broadcasts — Tweets, or personal activity updates here. Verbal, but basically free-floating.

Next would be comments on other people’s activity or posts or pictures or whatever. Comments ‘on’ something, in other words — focused activity, verbal, but let’s call it transitive, in the sense that there is an ‘object’ being commented on.

Next would be discussions, like the one we’re having here. Threaded or unthreaded, paginated or not, they are multi-person, ongoing interactions about a subject or subjects. This is the kind of interaction we think of as occurring in forums structures, mostly, although that term is used to describe a wide range of structure.

Now I want you to notice that there’s a leap in cognition, in interaction, in format, and in permanency in that last step. It’s a step up to actual discussion rather than commenting ‘on’ things, it’s a step up to engaging with multiple people, it’s a step up to threads (and possibly threaded conversation, but that’s a implementation detail) and pages, and most importantly, it’s a permanent interaction for the first time as we climb the ladder of the hierarchy.

A ‘forum’ discussion is something people will return to, to add to, or just to re-read, to get information from, to learn more about the people involved or the subject being discussed. It is part of the fabric of community because it is permanent. It is the bedrock of virtual permanency, to coin a phrase.

‘Social’ networking, people seem to forget, is about people. And it’s through the history of interactions in structured discussions that we learn about other people in a web community and decide if we want to be ‘social’ with them or not. This structured, searchable, historical record of activity and interaction is utterly essential for building real community. That’s forums.

Just to finish off the taxonomy, I’d say the top of the ladder would be blog posts, at least if they are ‘written’ things intended to be read by others and then possibly responded to. Notice that they are, in a way, the flipside, functionally, of the reply-to activity, being the mover rather than the response.

Now this is getting ridiculously long, but I don’t believe in ignoring honest questions even from people who insult me, so let me just wrap it up (and there’s more to say, but I have things to do) with this:

Where else other than a forum would I be able to write a longform comment about a complicated subject, as part of an ongoing discussion? We don’t have to call it a forum if we don’t want, but this STRUCTURE, this type of format, is the only one available to us, even at a conceptual level. It’s not something we can omit across the board. I suggested earlier, and I stand by my suggestion, that it’s ridiculous to suggest such a thing.

The forum style of community member interaction is an integral part of the hierarchy of ways that users will interact online, a way that they expect to be able to interact, and a way that is entirely reasonable for them to expect. It is not only useful for some functions (such as user-to-user support here at buddypress.org, or sharing information (ie code and tips and stuff in the case of bp.org)) that many if not all sites will be providing, it is the organic way that ongoing web community builds a foundation, that users come to know one another, and as such is the essential key for true ‘social networking’ among people who do not already know one another.

I reckon.

: “is they’re any way you can edit it through a text editor rather than dashboard. Or is there any known way of how to solve this problem”

I tire of trying to parse through the mangled English we see here sometimes to tease out intended meaning. Also, I believe the question was edited since first posted.

The answer to that questions is: of course, any good FTP client will let you do that kind of thing. My preferred tools: get the WinSCP FTP client, get Notepad++ and set it as the text editor for WinSCP, double click on any PHP (or whatever) file on your site through the FTP client, it’ll open locally in Notepad++, when you hit save it’ll automatically upload the file. Boom, done.

Nice questions, walls are critical for a social network. @mentions are cool for forums and such and for messaging, but not good for leaving nice messages on peoples walls that make them feel warm and fuzzy inside and that others can check out

I am looking to do something similar to that. Anyone have any code snippets or hints in the right direction to show X recent forum topics in the groups-loop?

Thanks!

Okay, let’s backtrack. Please answer these questions:

https://buddypress.org/community/groups/how-to-and-troubleshooting/forum/topic/when-asking-for-support/

One last thing. BEFORE you post questions in this forum PLEASE search first. Things have been answered 20 times over.

Good reads:

BuddyPress Codex

Hi Mr. Maz,

thanks a lot for all your great work at Buddypress. Your link-plugin is great.

Last weekend I was playing around with a friend on the link-component, and we had some ideas and questions, we would like to ask you:

1. How about adding sub-categories?

2. Is there a way to add custom-fields to links?

3. It would be great if your plugin would recognize the most common formats, like *.pls, *.mp3 … and display a play button for them.

Are you planning to add these features in the near future?

Thanks, Sven

As seen in other threads (and this one) I don’t think you can easily define a Social Network. People have different needs and desires when it comes to connecting with other people. Fundamentally, connecting is the only thing we’re all trying to do in one way or another.

Buddypress really is the kitchen sink. It offers everything you could want for a social network but without some careful planning for your specific community/target audience, BP could be a huge confusing mess.

This is what we’ve seen happening here on BP.org. Fundamentally, people want to come to this site to get information and help on BP. The forums are ideal for a support type of site with each thread being a question with answers, etc. That sort of interaction is difficult in an activity stream sort of model, especially if users aren’t fully immersed in the site. They come, ask their question, wait for an answer and leave until the next time they need help.

Groups are also handy in this sort of site as it allows people with similar interests to create a topic specific forum that doesn’t fit within the “main” forums. Instead of having one massive topic specific thread with many internal sub threads, they create their own group.

Activity streams are a huge mess on this sort of site and can add huge confusion. This isn’t really a socialization site where people are setting up their weekend plans or commenting on their buddy’s latest unfortunate event. That is where an activity stream comes in handy. I see it as being more for “personal connection” sites.

On BP.org, I don’t look at the main activity stream. I find it far to confusing and of little use. The Support index page is about the only place I go because I can see the latest questions and hot topics. It also shows me what public groups are currently getting a lot of traffic.

IMHO, the biggest missing piece in BP right now seems to be the connection between the activity stream and everything else. The activity stream needs to be more than just a content aggregator. Allowing people to comment on the activity stream implies that their response will be connected to the activity item. This is not currently the case and it is a huge usage nightmare.

Anyhoo, enough rambling. BP offers the tools but at the moment I can’t see many sites needing all of the features enabled.

Read my brief post for additional details on this issue.

But isn’t that worthy of discussing in a dedicated thread? I hear what you’re saying, is this not too some degree UI though? the API questions raised were indeed sounding like steps in the right direction especially where they touch on easing life for the presentation layer frontend developer but redefining The API doesn’t necessarily clear up ( or does it?)some of the concerns some have in regards how conceptually the whole ‘thing’ works and how the end user (frankly the only person that actually matters) finds it to use.

Both questions you need to investigate, if either of those are true you need to establish why otherwise you will struggle to ever grow your community, I would test ferociously the sending and receiving of emails and how your server might be configured, you may need an SPF record available so certain email servers don’t flag as spam i.e the likes of your hotmail accounts etc

We need many more details – please look at and let us know about the questions asked in https://buddypress.org/community/groups/how-to-and-troubleshooting/forum/topic/when-asking-for-support/

Also, please don’t bump your own post for at least 24 hours.

Yeah, I’m very much in agreement with Modemlooper on the sitewide Activity stream, here and in general. Focussing on it as a hub of activity is the wrong paradigm, because it moves too fast for anything but the smallest communities. One excellent solution is rich’s plugin that brings activity stream replies to forum posts inline to the post itself — I use that on the site I’m building now, to try and keep conversation from being fractured.

Different users use sites in different ways, of course, and the Activity stream is certainly one user story that shouldn’t be ignored. But, as I’ve said so many times before over the past almost-a-year, forums, in one sense or another, have a sense of permanency for users, a ‘virtual place’ they can return to, and I believe should be the anchor of a site like this and many others, where the ongoing stream of activity and making-friends for superfans and power users is less important than information being discoverable and discussion interactions being aggregated rather than just fading away. I am growing more disenchanted with the apparent lack of attention being paid to what I believe for many is essential for a successful community site — a featureful forum setup that is the steady beating heart of the swirl of activity.

Yes, I know the bbPress option is suboptimal as a solution, but it’s what we have to work with, and it can’t be ignored or passed off to bbpress.org, because we’re not running bbPress, we’re running an interface free, bbPress-plugin-incompatible fork of it, in essence if not reality, and I really do believe that more attention needs to be paid to the limitations of it as a component of BP and ways to make it work for community-building and user satisfaction.

Anyway, back to Activity. On true social network sites (whatever that means, exactly), it makes some sense that things are ephemeral, that interactions disappear beneath the fold, because, hey, it’s all about interacting with people, socially.

But the focus of this site (and most sites I might consider building with BP) is not just making friends and having a grand old social time. It’s sharing information, asking questions, discussing solutions, offering and asking for assistance, and it’s important that the interface those interactions be structured discoverable for people who are going to have the same questions in future as BP adoption grows, and the toolset for creating them be rich, both from the administration and user-facing perspectives.

How many times do we see the same questions being asked, basic or otherwise? To answer my own question, a lot. That’s just human nature in part, certainly, but it’s also, I think, because the tools we have for using these forums are vestigial, and people just don’t have the information they need at their fingertips. User confusion and frustration will kill a community faster than goatse images. We’re all so used to using this app that I think we lose sight of just how daunting it is for new users. The site I’m building for an existing community on a different platform has taught me that, very quickly.

Not a comprehensive list, but just stuff that comes immediately to mind: things like the lack of a link in the overall forums directory view to the last post in a thread, thread pagination links, or the username of the thread starter, like the inability suddenly to post code, like the lack of pagination to get to older threads in the forums directory (which leads to a ‘uh, now where do I go to see older threads’ reaction, in me, at least, a question to which I still don’t know an answer that doesn’t involve an awful lot of clicks and blind alleys), like the fact that a and a:visited elements are styled the same, like the eyestrainy new design, like conversation being fractured between activity stream and forum posts, like the loss of the ability to favorite threads to bookmark them for later and a place to easily survey and keep up with the threads we’ve started or commented in, well, it’s death by a thousand cuts at the moment.

Don’t take this as just moaning, though. I don’t mean to insult anyone, and I know how much my feelings are hurt when my own users level harsh criticism of my design decisions. I love BP, I think @apeatling and everyone else involved in building and supporting BP, ‘officially’ or not, are doing a great job, and I see nothing but further successes. But I think BP itself, as it stands, without thinking a little bit (OK, a lot) more about how actual users use it, is a poor match for this site, so far. It wasn’t that great in the old design, but it’s orders of magnitudes more confusing and difficult to use now, even for someone like me who’s been nipples-deep in BP for many months.

OK, I’ve typed enough. I’m going back to work on my Stylish Firefox extension stylesheet for this site so that the low-contrast doesn’t give me headaches any more.

This thread is quite interesting to me, and I do appreciate everyone’s thoughtful posts.

I may sound silly asking some of these questions so I would like to beg your forgiveness in advance,

1) Is WPMU still a base requirement for BuddyPress?
2) When a membership site is using BuddyPress, WordPress or WPMU (if required), 1ShoppingCart, and Wishlist Member, is the login seamless?

I guess further questions are relatd to the answers to these. Thanks in advance for your responses!

After a few months of working with BP (with a good background in working with WP in general, and pretty strong HTML/CSS skills), I’m getting pretty comfortable. I’ve found the best for me has been to

a) set up a localhost install using WAMP or XAMPP that you can play with and wipe easily.
b) look at what other sites including this one have done, learn and understand how child themes work, try out new stuff with your own child themes, dig into the templates (and bp-core stuff) and see how it’s put together
c) look at the way plugins you like or think are rock solid are put together.
d) when you get stuck, ask questions here, the more specific the better.

For my part, my great weakness is in PHP. What I’ve learned, I’ve learned by fiddling, but basic concepts and stuff, well, let’s say that I fly by the seat of my pants. If working with PHP functions and actions and hooks and filters and arrays and all that kind of stuff isn’t something you’re comfortable with, brushing up on it (or learning by doing and failing, as I have been), is a pretty good idea.

I’m getting pretty comfortable with digging into the guts of BP now, but I’ve got a long way to go, even as someone who’s been building sites as a hobby with and without WP for many years. Still have an enormous amount to learn, especially about working with PHP, though.