Just make a group called, for example, “General Chat”, and you could link to its forum page in your main nav. If you make this a Public group, anyone going to post will automatically be joined into that Group
I’m working on this as part of a theme. Separating out a single forum under the slug forum. So that way when you click forum it’s just one general forum and then groups have their own mini forum inside. This is really how BP should be from the start. A main sitewide forum with group forums that are just inside group only.
@brajesh is cooking something up…
Global Forums plugin just released today at Buddydev. Looks ossum!
Introducing Global sitewide forums plugin for Buddypress
@pcwriter 
It’s still beta but yeah, it looks awesome @sbrajesh!
This looks very interesting! How can one tell whether or not it will be released for free or as a premium plug-in?
It’s premium for now…but really inexpensive. Especially so considering how much extra help and attention that @sbrajesh gives us.
I am suprised that such a basic feature of having a global forum is not part of buddypress.
@gregfielding
I don’t see any other plugin that they offer and I need. So 30$ for having a basic feature such as a forum is not inexpensive to me! phpBB has been free for over 10 years and offers much more than just a global forum.
@djpaul – your solution on here kind of works, but still introduces concepts that confuse the user. They are made to ‘join a group’, when all they wanted to do was post on a forum (to you and me it’s trivial, but not to the ordinary user)… other confusing things happen… e.g. on this site – I click on a thread under the Support top level tab, and suddenly find that I have been thrown into the Community tab (because the actual forum / thread is in a group). Again, as a normal user I’m confused – I was in support, and suddenly I’m in Community without choosing to go there.
So, from a technical viewpoint, it works, but from a usability viewpoint, it’s not really delivering.
We need somewhere to discuss usability – is there anywhere?
@lisame – the pricing policy for @sbrajesh plugin software is his own choice as an independent developer. It seems really inexpensive to me (although I don’t like the recurring subscription model for this kind of one-off purchase). As @gregfielding notes, he provides excellent help on the forums. But I’m getting off track.
Full featured global forums would be nice in BuddyPress, but I don’t think it’s where the core development should be (strong, flexible core profile features would be nice). By the same score, I don’t think the Group / Forum approach should have become so integral.
It would be nice to see a more loosely coupled approach – strong support for profile integration with 3rd party forum solutions, i.e. leave the forum function to specialist forum developers, but ensure activity, sign on, etc. can be integrated with BuddyPress.
So many threads on forums – would be nice to see them pulled together!
