[ryanrain]

small tweak to not break for users with names that include spaces. the issue was not a permissions one as i posted above.

/*
 * attempt to handle generic request for current user
 * https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/how-do-i-link-to-profile-page/
 *
 * if the url is passed as forums/users/current/
 * this function detects that the permalink has been set to bbp_user=current
 * and
 *  - if the user is logged on, the query is changed to the current user
 *  - if the user is not logged on, the user is redirected to login screen
 *
 */
function ink_bbp_request_current_user( $query_vars ) {
	if ( isset( $query_vars[ 'bbp_user' ] ) ) {
		switch ( $query_vars[ 'bbp_user' ] ) {
			case 'current':
				if ( get_current_user_id() ) {
					$query_vars[ 'bbp_user' ] = bbp_get_user_nicename(get_current_user_id());
				} else {
					auth_redirect();
				}
		}
	}
	return $query_vars;
}

add_filter( 'bbp_request', 'ink_bbp_request_current_user', 10, 1 );

[ryanrain]

@jonathanmoorebcs for me, your code works great for admin users, but fails for contributor role users