BuddyPress.org

I absolutely love the potential of WordPress / BuddyPress / bbpress ! 🙂

However, it seems I am continually frustrated by not being able to get the control and results that I want for my website. The core functions of all of these great products always need the use of another added plugin to accomplish this, or do that.

But, you say “Plugins and modularity are awesome and flexible – we don’t want to bloat the core” etc. That’s all been debated to death.

However, guess what happens when a great plugin that is necessary to the features that a website wants/needs no longer works? You know the answer to that… and it sucks.

Seems like every time WP, BP, or bbpress has a core change, something breaks in a plugin somewhere, or the interaction between these products gets screwy.

Just today I found a great plugin that I “need” to provide additional features to my site. It looks like it’s just the perfect plugin for my needs – but the developer has not updated it or responded to support topics in over 6 months – and so has issues that make impossible to use at this time.

I’ve been biding my time for a couple years, waiting to move from a clunky old e107 website to a full on WP/BP/bbpress for my very busy website. I’m pretty damn good at WordPress now, and so when I go to do something that I think is going to work out to be great, and then run into a stumbling block at nearly every turn, it’s very frustrating 🙁

I don’t expect any of this to be perfect and easy out of the box. But…. this is just starting to feel pointless. I am seriously considering a more forum centric solution (SMF, phpBB, etc).

What a shame.