BuddyPress.org

Hi

BuddyPress is just a set of plugins for WordPress. Installing BuddyPress won’t loose any of your existing data. Of course, back up all your files and database first just in case!

Reading your post, I think the answer is “hire a theme developer to make it look right.”

First of all, you need to get a test server (even if it’s locally on your machine) setup with a base WordPress install with your theme and then install BuddyPress and then this.

There will be changes which you’ll need to adapt to, but the above-linked BP Template Pack plugin should get you started (or at least let you assess whether the changes are something you can do or whether it’s something you need to hire a developer for).

@Scotm (“Give me a P2 groupblog with a cleaned up groups feature and BuddyPress is relevant again…”)

That’s kinda where I’m trying to get to. Marius Ooms as well. One of my frustrations is that I can’t figure out how to put the ‘group blog home’ on the ‘group home’ page itself without breaking the Ajax. The connection between group and group blog is very unclear. Still need to work on that… Also managing all the different settings is unwieldy. This plugin helps, but it would be nice if it all was part of the core, integrated with better management.

I use it on Web2NewYork.com. You’d have to register to test it, which you’re welcome to do. The site is mostly for event registration. Members so far ignore the blog/group/posting features…

@jivany (“I don’t understand your BP forum complaints. You don’t use forums because you have basically replicated the forum concept in blog posts/comments”)

Exactly! My point is that integrating an external forum like bbPress into Buddypress is unnecessary and only creates a lot of confusion, undermines the structure. Less is more. KISS.

I would like Buddypress to consolidate on the smallest number of parts, leverage what’s already in WordPress, instead of adding database tables and external scripts that partly overlap/clash with other parts.

But bbPress seems to be taking over Buddypress. Wrong direction imho.

Buddypress could be a next generation social network because it would be more content-centric, thanks to its WordPress roots. Forums only distract from what could be a very logical conceptual approach.

This doesn’t even make sense to me. ‘Groups’ are a ‘killer app’? ‘Next generation social network’ because it’s ‘content-centric’? What on earth?

Yes, those are scare quotes. Honestly, though. I don’t know what kind of point you’re trying to make, other than that you HATE FORUMS GRAR.

@Sadr (“I see immense potential in BuddyPress as an open collaboration platform. I do believe though that traditional social networks do not encourage collaboration, maybe continuity in particular, well enough, and so there’s a lot to learn or borrow from other systems more commonly used in that context.”)

I agree Buddypress has great potential as a collaboration platform, but the natural focus point for that collaboration would be groups where members would come together and share content using blog posts+comments, WP’s native way of organizing content.

Why would you need forums? What makes forums so great for collaboration?

Groups could be Buddypress killer app. Buddypress could be a next generation social network because it would be more content-centric, thanks to its WordPress roots. Forums only distract from what could be a very logical conceptual approach.

@stwc (“People get so attached to their meaningless buzzwords they forget that the whole idea is to serve the needs of actual users … Abandoning a tried, tested, and true form of internet community interaction because of some quixotic quest to be modern and social-networky …”)

If you can’t tell the conceptual difference between a forum and a social network, this discussion is wasted on you.

Thanks @r-a-y. It could be done without a plugin by uploading the desired theme files into wp-content/themes/default folder to replace the files there. Then change the Theme Name of file of new default theme’s style.css to Theme Name: WordPress Default

Just keep a copy of the preferred theme in your computer so that whenever you upgrade your WP install, you upload your preferred theme files with the revised Theme Name in style.css again to wp-content/themes/default. Since upgrading WP occurs around 5 times a year or so, no hard task at all.

The only hitch is if the replacement theme has hardcoded paths instead of using relative paths and therefore would not work in folder name different from referenced files’ URL’s.

@r-a-y @peterverkooijen
Just to clarify: I’m not really for the actual inclusion of bbPress inside of BuddyPress. What I want is the ability to replicate forum-like functionality within the boundaries of what WordPress+BuddyPress can be extended to. I believe social networks can be the next generation of collaborative forums. That is the type of functionality I have envisioned for my still-hypothetical BuddyPress site anyways.

It all depends on what you want to do with your community.

Since you have no experience with WordPress, the BuddyPress for Dummies book might be a good way to start:
https://buddypress.org/2010/03/book-buddypress-for-dummies/

If you have some coding experience, it shouldn’t take you long to get up to speed. Although it would have helped to have some idea of how WordPress works, especially with themes and hooks.

BuddyPress might very well be used first and foremost as a forum by those of us who want WordPress+bbPress without any fuzz (because BuddyPress delivers).

But BP isn’t a forum. Just use bbPress if you want a forum; it’s less overhead as well. Plus you get access to all the existing plugins without needing to tweak them for BP.

FYI, there are signs that bbPress is coming back to life.

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To some extent, I agree with Peter (but not his tone!). We should be taking advantage of the existing activity stream coupled with some activitymeta (title, tags). I think this could potentially be used as a very nice “forum alternative”; we also wouldn’t have to worry about forking discussions from the activity stream. Also, I think this new enhanced activity stream should only be used for groups. Just a thought.

I’ll see if I can get a proof of concept going.

Btw, @peterverkooijen – I’m not sugarcoating anything; I understand the rationale used for incorporating bbPress up to version 1.1. I definitely don’t believe it’s a “parasite” like you do.

@andrea_r You say BuddyPress is not a forum. Before it integrated bbPress into the core, I would agree. Now, BP better put that script to excellent use, or else it’s just bloat. The fact that bbPress is ‘in between places’ these days has made many of us bbP enthusiasts turn to BP as it’s successor, since it is clearly actively developed and seems able to use bbP in ways never before possible!

Until bbPress comes back to life, in whichever form that might be; and BuddyPress integration comes with it, BuddyPress might very well be used first and foremost as a forum by those of us who want WordPress+bbPress without any fuzz (because BuddyPress delivers).

By all means, I think it should be possible (and rather effortless at that) to mold BuddyPress into a more forum-like environment. After all, forums is the ‘light’ social network most of us low-tech people know as a do-it-yourself collaboration platform. Remember all of those free-install forums on a sub-domain, usually with nasty ads forced on users? Millions used those; it’s the platform we’ve come to know better than any other, as a social administrator.

download it from the plugin homepage or wordpress.org, its very much alive and works great

Ahh okay, try this plugin by Rich:
https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/buddypress-group-forum-extras/

This extends the functionality of the group forums. One of the features is a group forum index.

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Also make sure you have enabled the discussion forum for each group.

Just stepping in with a recent observation that I am not sure how to address.

in looking aroudn and watching tweets & blog posts elsewhere about newcomers to the platform, someone somewhere started referring to it as a FORUM.

It is not.

And newcomers expecting a forum-like interface and usage are the ones I see struggling the most. Whether it’s being confused with bbpress (the name) in general, I dunno. But it might make a bit more sense and be less painful to regulars if we could start stressing that is is not a forum, it’s a social networking add-on for WordPress. Not separate (man, I am not impressed with the auto-install script…), and outside of anything that’s been done before.