I was thinking about how to tackle that problem. What I envisioned would be that each member would have a “virtual calling card”. When they connect with someone in the decentralized network the person they connect with would store this (and only this) card in their database.
Essentially what would be included would be their basic, public information, including an rss of their news-stream. The effect would be as if you went to your facebook page. Just as in FB when you click on an album you go to that page, this would work the same way.
No one authority would need to manage this system.
To solve to WP/BP issues above I think that it would be really effective to leverage the is_user_logged_in() and current_user_can(‘administrator’) functions:
If a user is not logged in, it shows a regular theme, like any other blog.
If user is logged in it show the BP interface.
If user is admin it shows the BP dashboard.
This would effectively separate between wordpress and buddypress dashboards, as well as offer a person the ability to have a one-stop shop for their social and professional needs.
For the DB issues, bbpress requires it’s own table but shares the user table with wordpress, would this be an option?
r-a-y maybe you are right. I created some dummy accounts and input all the fields in profile page. Then I log out and check every account, they are showing correctly. Is it any encoding issue you think? Although I am sure wordpress mu and buddypress are utf-8 standard.
@scwcreative Set permalinks to other than default and save
That’s my web host, they pointed at the WordPress as the culprit.
The WordPress install was done manually. New database, etc.
@mercime, set permalinks to what?
And what did support@apollohosting-inc.com say when you contacted them?
This could have been caused if you installed WP/MU via simplescripts, fantastico, etc. Delete previous installation including htaccess file generated and wp-config (if MU) and drop database tables.
Do manual upload of WP or MU via FTP or cpanel and install.
Go to dashboard > Settings > Permalinks and run it.
Do FTP/cpanel upload of BuddyPress plugin.
Activate BP plugin and go to BP settings page to enable components.
If you need a sidebar widget in author’s blog then you could use
https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/bp-profile-widget-for-blogs/
Ok, I had the same problem, and I got that “Mail From” plugin and it works as far as the From line coming from the community name instead of from “WordPress.” However, emails are still going to the spam folder. Is there no way around this at all?
No, I didn’t. I am currently without Buddypress on my WordPress install.
I ended up killing the mu installation and putting back WordPress standard, though that doesn’t seem to fare any better for Buddypress.
I’m bit at a loss, I’d like to use Buddypress but without it activating properly I don’t know what to do.
Thanks to Sarah Gooding, I found this plugin which mostly works with WPMU 2.9.2 and BP 1.2.3: http://www.thinkinginwordpress.com/2009/10/autoactivate-users-and-blogs-at-buddypress-signup/ Only problem is that it still sends the activation email despite the email already being active.
My hope is to incorporate the code from Andy so that it will work with both WPMU and WP and then make it so neither one sends the activation email.
If anyone has ideas why it’s sending the activation email in WPMU, I’d appreciate any help. Seems like it might be a priority issue, but I haven’t yet figured that out.
“Automattic needs to go back to the basic building blocks – users, posts, comments – and make sure they are solid, remove redundancies etc. And then develop different ways to connect those elements and display the data in different user interfaces; blog, social network, forum, microblogging, social bookmarking, etc“.
Just to be clear, on this account I agree wholeheartedly. Forum functionality is one thing, but a separate script all together to make a forum when you’ve already got WordPress and BuddyPress put together with their respective building blocks at your disposal, that seems like a flawed development practice to me.
With WordPress, 3.0 and its custom post types in particular, we’ve got all we need already. This is what I tried to get across on my ‘rethinking posts’ thread.
https://buddypress.org/community/groups/miscellaneous/forum/topic/re-thinking-posts/
@twodeuces – Nice job! It’s always nice though to attribute the original work. Also, it should be quite easy to add your admin menu to the existing BP admin menu without waiting for the 3.0 merge.
@3sixty (“The irony of “BuddyPress shouldn’t be about forums”, and “if you want a forum, don’t use BP” and “bbPress is a parasite in BP…” is that the FORUM is the center point of activity here on buddypress.org”)
There’s nothing ironic about that. Traditional forums are very useful, but if you want a traditional forum you can install PunBB or bbPress. The point is that bolting a forum onto a social network derails the social networking structure. Mixing forum and social networking is the cause of a lot of the confusion and interface problems that this thread is about.
Social networking sites (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) imho evolved from traditional forums; they are a next generation paradigm in how to structure a web community, with more emphasis on individual members, less on forum topics. That’s also why I keep complaining about anonymous usernames and the underdeveloped member management in BP.
It has been depressing to see in recent months that people who primarily want a traditional forum are taking over Buddypress, pushing it back into the older forms. Mixing these different approaches to structuring a community does not make it a more versatile product. It’s the kitchen sink. It’s becomes an unwieldy mess.
As explained earlier in this thread, you can get forum-like functionality following existing Buddypress/Wordpress structures. You can display blog posts and comments in a forum structure. You could probably do it in a template. There is absolutely no need to bolt on an external forum, adding new database tables and functionality that partly overlaps/clashes with existing functionality.
Automattic needs to go back to the basic building blocks – users, posts, comments – and make sure they are solid, remove redundancies etc. And then develop different ways to connect those elements and display the data in different user interfaces; blog, social network, forum, microblogging, social bookmarking, etc.
Wow, amazing analysis by Boone… I really “get it” now. Andrea_r also has a good point though that WPMU is distributed in other ways that are meaningful and powerful. I think the author’s comment was just speculation, and limited to a project called “DiSo” that was apparently designed to integrate with WordPress; not sure if DiSo worked at all with MU.
The part about that quote that resonated with me is just the idea of “WP wasn’t designed from the ground up to host BP.” When I’m writing something for BP, I always feel like I’m gaming WordPress to do something it was not really designed to do. So I’m writing code that somehow has to play nice with the host, WordPress, which is awesome in its own right – but what I’m really trying to do is build a social network. So it would be more logical to me to say, “OK, here’s my BuddyPress network. WP is really good at XYZ, so how can I adapt *WordPress* to meet my BP needs?”
“1) They tried to add on to WordPress, a project which was not designed from the ground up to be a distributed network.”
okay, here’s what I don’t get – isn’t MU a distributed network?
Is your problem that the javascript isn’t loading?
The best way to include the script is with https://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/wp_enqueue_script.
You could also just edit the header.php file of your theme to include a script tag.
“1) They tried to add on to WordPress, a project which was not designed from the ground up to be a distributed network.”
This really feels like the “elephant in the room” every time I visit my wp-admin panel. My BuddyPress admin menu keeps growing and growing, disproportionate to the WP-specific admin menus.
I keep waiting for the discussions to start on how BP is “outgrowing” WP. I guess that happens when the limitations of WP start to outweigh the advantages, such as all the great WP functions we get “for free”. When you think about it, it is a little weird – for example, how blogs and forums are integrated with BP in such different ways and don’t really “talk” to each other in a meaningful way. The whole idea of “like” and “favorite” and “report” buttons that work on one content type but not another. Etc.
Always good to have options. Four coders on the project sound good.
Here’s one thing that caught my eye when the Diaspora coders were talking about similar projects that failed (DiSo):
http://joindiaspora.com/2010/04/30/a-response-to-mr-villa.html
To answer directly, I am pretty sure DISO failed because:
1) They tried to add on to WordPress, a project which was not designed from the ground up to be a distributed network.
2) (a guess) they quickly tried to support all sort of features without building some sort of common infrastructure before trying to add functionality.
I would have replied and mentioned BP of course 
But I also get their point.
Hi, I’ve made some slight modifications to my buddypress/wordpress site and everything worked fine… But now I loaded up my site today (after not making any changes since it last worked) and the background colour for my main content area has disappeared. It now just has a few white patches but the rest is see through…
Take a look: http://www.petsknowbest.co.uk/test/kids
How do I fix this? I want the main content area to be white again.
We are actually waiting for WordPress 3.0 to come out and the subsequent Buddypress to arrive before updating this to be Single User compatible. If anyone would like to help port this over before hand, I’ll gladly help out where I can.
No it does not as the plugin add on menu resides in the Site Admin section. We are going to move it to the BuddyPress Control Section and get it working on singel users as well. It will be nice when the MU and normal wordpress merge.
If you’re using standard WP, you should be able to use any ecommerce plugin that’s available for WP.
https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tags/ecommerce
We reworked the Auto Group Join plugin so it worked with our Buddpress 1.3 install. We had kept it private as it seemed it wasn’t in demand. Someone had PM me about it, so we decided to post it the database. While we were at it, we decided to add one other plugin that we were using to help moderate and move incorrectly placed topics from one group to another.
More information can be found at these links:
BuddyPress Auto Join Group
BuddyPress Forum Topic Mover
@erich73, I can tell you’re really excited about the new version, but asking every couple days if they’re done is kind of like being the kid in the back of the car ‘are we there yet?’ 
Have faith and a little more patience. They’ll put out 1.2.4 when it’s done and working, and not rush it just to get it out there. Right now, the roadmap says they’re 81% done. They MIGHT even be waiting for WordPress 3.0 to get finished since both projects are right next to each other. But they’ll get done soon
