If you don’t need user blogs, don’t use wpmu.
Wpmu was created only for that purpose.
the answer is certainly WordPress. If giving blogs to your users is not a must WordPress is the pnly answer.
Why? Because MU adds tables for every user and you get a huge database at the end. You will need a VPS for MU at least.
@Ann Christine
Did you configure the SMTP plugin correctly?
Here are some instructions:
http://ericlbarnes.com/how-to/wordpress-and-google-apps/
The email bug on the BP site I was working would not send any BP email to a GMail account, but would send to all other email addresses. I thought it was semi-related to the issues you and ruthlessbookie were encountering.
I ran into a similar issue recently on a BP site I was working on.
I used this plugin:
https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/configure-smtp/
with a Google Apps email account.
Unfortunately I have the same problem as the two of you. I am running fresh installations – newest WPMU and BP.
It was running all fine.
Now I (admin) get no email notifications at all – users do not receive any either. The activation emails are not being sent. The WPMU ones are not sent out either.
I am using a catch-all email on my email host to be able to sign up with different emails on the same domain.
First thing I was thinking was whether BP or WP was thinking all this signup from the same email domain was SPAM and therefore closing down signups from my IP or whatever.
I have searched for answers and found this: https://mu.wordpress.org/forums/topic/13039
Apparently some hosts do not allow automated emails to be sent out.
(However, if my host do not allow this, how come it worked fine for two weeks?)
Only plugin I have installed is the cets-blog-defaults. I have tried to deactivate it, but it does not help.
This is really frustrating 
@lpegram
Are you using WPMU or standard WP?
If you’re using WPMU, read what I just wrote here:
https://buddypress.org/forums/topic/wordpress-vs-wordpress-mu#post-41890
This is my personal opinion, but If you’re building on top of an existing WordPress blog and theme, I would recommend WPMU so you can install BP on a secondary blog.
This is so you can separate the community side from your main WP blog. It will make things much easier from a theme perspective and for future upgrades to BP.
Plugins are a non-issue, unless you want to use the BP Group Wiki plugin or the BP Classifieds plugin.
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If you’re starting from scratch and you do not anticipate the need for user blogs, I recommend standard WordPress.
If you install BuddyPress you’re blog will remain the main blog and all your posts/authors/categories etc are still there.. It does not remove your existing blog, it simply adds social network functions to them!
Your WordPress theme can’t be used though, so you’ll might need to change the standard BP theme to fit your needs by creating a Child Theme.
5860248Inactive
Check out this plugin: It’ll get you started
http://wiki.thisblueroom.net/wiki/Wordpress_MU_sitewide_recent_posts_plugin
It displays all the recent entries for the particular user.
The BP-Gallery plugin by BuddyDev.com is your best bet; it’s still in beta though.
Also, it’s a paid plugin. Cheapest membership rate is $30 for 3 months access to the entire plugin and theme gallery.
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There’s also MrMaz’s BP-Links plugin – https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/buddypress-links/.
And oEmbed for BuddyPress – https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/oembed-for-buddypress/
Both of these plugins rely on third-party video sites like YouTube, DailyMotion, etc.
https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/exclude-pages/
Adds a checkbox on each page in admin to allow you to exclude pages from nav.
Thats not the right way to do it. You will need to use some of these files.
Plugin here that guides you through it
https://codex.buddypress.org/how-to-guides/wordpress-to-buddypress-theme/
I have not tested this out but I’ve been looking for something similar and also found the “My Favorite Post” plugin which links the database to the user profile rather than the wp-favorite-posts plugin which uses cookies. This may better integrate with user profiles in buddypress (if it works). If anyone tries it out let me know and if I get any updates I’ll post them:
http://www.kriesi.at/archives/wordpress-plugin-my-favorite-posts
If you are running buddypress with wordpress single version (not wpmu), then dreamhost, hostgator, and others should be fine.
But if you intend to host blogs or use buddypress with wpmu, then those shared servers won’t be capable of your applications. I currently use wpmu/buddypress on Media Temple grid server.
Media Temple are not bad , have one of their Dedicated virtual servers, possibly a bit pricier than the others, but excellent fast support, very good KB, good active forum, server performs well has plenty of bandwidth, memory and disk space, plesk panel plus licences not that I like control panels that much. Full SSH root access, do what you like with the server etc.
As for memory required to run something like WPMU and Buddypress it really all depends on how busy the site is we have on this particular server 1.5GB which is plenty. WP/BP should run fairly well in less, min I would want though is 512MB. More important I would have thought is having a full set of resources to dedicate to the site so wouldn’t consider running on any form of shared hosting only VPS or Dedicated especially when things start to get busy.
All of the hosts mentioned are good and all I think are recommended on wordpress.org so should be fairly safe whichever you choose.
since i use bbPress as an external install (on a subdomain and within bp) – want to carry over some of the basic plugins. So, I’m working on bb-signatures, bb-code, bb-smiles into the BP group forums section (maybe ajaxed quote – not sure yet)
also, i have company directory app (standard address, contact, members, deals, reviews, tagging) that runs on a hybrid wordpress based site – i’m thinking about converting this into a bp component (based on groups?)
i just wrote a plugin to restrict group creation to wp cap levels, pretty basic for the first release though
https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/buddypress-restrict-group-creation/
The BB forum is for the people who installed Buddypress to get into this newfangled social networking thing and then decide they need something more familiar looking.
To my eyes the discussion beneath an item from the activity stream looks the same as the discussion in a forum.
Group Blog with front-end posting and threaded comments via P2 will do everything you can do with a forum, but in a much more native WordPress/Buddypress way.
+1 to having forum categories on a per group basis.
I already run a number of vb sites with hundreds of thousands of users and would love to someday bring that platform to wordpress/bp.
The problem is that my forums are huge (millions of posts) and without separation, it would be impossible using group forums.
I’d rather not have to create a separate group just to have a separate forum, as then I would end up with hundreds of groups (one forum I run has about a hundred or so subforums all are very active). That would only diminish the value of using groups imho.
I just don’t see the feasibility of doing it this way.
For instance, how in the world would you convert a site like vbulletin.org forums over to bp groups?
Even with very fancy templating it would still not work properly
(Yes, I know, groups are really just uber powerful forum categories… for a lack of a better way of putting it)
Dreamhost all the way,
Been with them for 4 years now. Their servers are optimized to work with WordPress (and WPMU if you get a dedicated server), therefore Buddypress is a piece of cake. Their shared servers are really good actually, you get the best plans (seriously the stuff you can do is a lot more than the usual hosting package), and really good prices.
I may experience about 2-3 downtimes a year, which are usually for maintenance, seldom for hardware failure.
Plus, the guys at support really know what they’re doing and they can fix about anything really quickly, or even move you instantly to another server if it’s not working… and you dont have to do anything! 
thank you
ticket created https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/12569
my first time posting ticket, hope the info is what is needed.
Hey gang,
Just moderated my first thread; removed some sentences due to topic irrelevancy, but the main gist is still there.
Going back to stwc’s initial post:
– forum inline attachments – Boone has a port of _ck_’s old plugin working for the most part
– quote – i’ll take a look at this one when i have some time
– forum whispers – not really interested in this one… maybe someone else can take a look at this?
– gui for textarea – Boone has a TinyMCE plugin for this
Peter, as you well know, you can disable forum integration. Privacy is an issue, yes. There’s no complete solution right now (patiently waiting for Jeff’s plugin), but one solution I’ve tried is Jehy’s Registered Users Only 2 plugin. Though, I did modify it a tiny bit for BP needs. I can post the modified code if anyone’s interested.
@ if I can find the ticket system for mu I will report it as well.
is merged into wp trac !
https://trac.mu.wordpress.org/wiki
