[mauryg]

@membershipsite101
Using the index shortcode on the ‘forum’ page is perfectly normal. If you leave the /forum page blank then you can choose whether to show the forums index or the topics index on the bbpress settings page.
As I noted before the URL of the Welcome page says it is a subpage of the ‘Help’ page (http://membershipsite101.com/help/welcome). So I would expect it to use the template of the /help page, not the one of the /forum page. Do you perhaps have a page titled ‘Welcome’? Try hovering over the forum title on the /forum page and see what the link says. If the forum root is ‘discussion’ then the /welcome page should be either /discussion/welcome or /forum/discussion/welcome.
I think you need to review your bbpress settings again. Look at my page http://spaug.net/forums.
I use the bbpress default settings as follows:
Forum root slug: forums
Forum slug: forum
Topic slug: topic
And I check the ‘Forum Prefix’ box as recommended.
Then my URLs are as follows:
Root page: sitename/forums
Individual forum page: sitename/forums/forum/forum-name
Individual topic page: sitename/forums/topic/topic-title
I suggest that you try changing the forum root slug to ‘forum’ or ‘forums’
Finally, unless you are very adept at CSS modifications, I recommend the ‘bbp style pack’ plugin. It allows you to modify colors, fonts, font size, etc easily.
Remember, whatever optimizepress theme template.php you want to use for the forums page (right sidebar, no sidebar, etc) make a second copy of it IN THE SAME FOLDER and rename it bbpress.php. That way bbpress will always use that template. I also make a copy of the bbpress.css file from plugin folder (\wp-content\plugins\bbpress\templates\default\css\bbpress.css) and put it in the theme folder. That way you can use the WordPress Editor (Appearance>Editor) to make changes.
I just did a quick Google search on ‘Optimizepress and bbPress’ and it looks like there is a lot of incompatibility. I also noted that Optimizepress was discontinuing their support forum in favor of their ‘customer happiness team’. My condolences
Having fun yet?

Maury
Maury

[mauryg]

@membershipsite101
Don’t know if we are talking about the same problem. It seems like your site is using a different HEADER template for the Welcome page. Also noted that the Welcome page is a subpage of the HELP page, not of the FORUMS page. Are you using bbpress shortcodes for this? You might want to check the bbpress settings page and see if the slugs are set correctly.
But anyway, I looked at your site and I noticed that the bbpress.css file was being loaded from the bbpress plugin directory, not from the theme directory.
Did you in fact copy the template.php file you want to use into the theme directory and rename it bbpress.php? I also strongly suggest copying the bbpress.css file into the theme directory as well so you can make changes to the bbpress styling easily.
Hope this helps.
Maury

[mauryg]

ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC.
This was EXACTLY the answer I was looking for. And mind-numbing SIMPLE.
Thank you all very much.

Maury

[mauryg]

@Stephen

Thanks for the reply.
You’re correct. The first two points were covered except that I need to test if I can eliminate the ‘All Members’ public group and just use a sitewide forum.
In the meantime I had successfully upgraded to bbPress 2.5.1 and I have now gone to 2.5.2.
I’ll check the theme compatibility article although I am using a child theme of Suffusion and I have installed the Suffusion bbPress pack.
The threaded reply setting was enabled to a depth of ‘2’. The first reply was at the same level as the original posting and the reply to that was indented one level. When I increased the depth to ‘4’ and added more replies to replies, the threading worked. I guess I can live with the first reply being at the same level or I can muck around with the CSS if need be. 😉

Happy New Year

Maury

[mauryg]

Part of the problem resolved…my Christmas present to myself.
The problem was in the ‘psychology’ of the site.
Since only registered members can access the ‘all-residents’ group and forums, there was no need for that group to be ‘private’. Once I made the GROUP ‘public’ then the regular sitename/forums link worked perfectly, but the groups and forums were still NOT visible to the non-logged-in public. Since I don’t use the ‘friending’ feature and only designated moderators can form groups, I don’t think it is necessary to have the ‘all-residents’ GROUP and the all-residents FORUM is simply ‘site-wide’.
Still leaves the questions of formatting the forum postings and threading (indenting) the replies.