[Asynaptic]

@karivan with respect, I don’t think you are completely grasping what is being discussed here.

[Asynaptic]

@tieptoep thanks, I’ve taken a look at the trac and it seems to definitely have to do with permalinks but I’m not sure if the creator of the ticket (alexvorn2) is referring to the same solution as I and others are asking for (see above examples).

for example, alexvorn2 has this as an example:

1) pretty url: http://example.com/forum/subforum/custom_topic_title
structure will be: http://example.com/%forumparentsnames%/%topicname%

But the second line doesn’t seem to correspond to the permalink structure shown in the first line. Specifically, he seems to have left out the slug for the subforum! Or maybe I’m missing something.

It is very disappointing to see JJJ throw this in ‘future releases’ which is basically where trac tickets go to die. And to change the priority: “Priority changed from normal to low” and “Severity changed from normal to minor” and ” Type changed from defect to enhancement” when in fact I and many others would argue there is nothing that is, has been and will continue to be the highest priority ticket (until it is fixed) and there is nothing more severe and this is most definitely a defect, *not* an enhancement.

These changes sadly tells us, the users, just how much we have failed to communicate to the devs (or how much they have failed to actually listen to us – or a combination of both).

As for attempts to solve this, @dbungard shares some code in the previous page of this very thread. As well, I linked earlier to several other past attempts at the solution. I think user @mr_pelle was the developer of the bbPress nicer permalinks plugin but that was many years ago (3+?) and he doesn’t seem to be active on the forum. As well, the plugin is nowhere to be found.

There has been no feedback or response from devs on any of this code, even when another user specifically asks for that in the past page.

This issue is so fundamental to the very core of bbPress functioning that I question whether it is something that can be hacked together with a plugin, bailing wire and a convoluted .htaccess file.

[Asynaptic]

@tieptoep No problem. I’m glad it is clear now.

It is way beyond ‘inelegant’. It is beyond baffling why it hasn’t been fixed yet. And beyond frustrating that the devs strongly push back instead of simply acknowledging the issue and working on fixing it.

Unfortunately I’m not a coder and have no idea how to even open a ticket or word it properly in this context. But as a user, it is self-evident that the way bbPress uses permalinks needs fixing.

Also, through this thread and many others, it is also very obvious that this is a very important and irritating issue that has been brought up going back as far back as 7 years!

As I mentioned, there is or was a plugin which claimed to fix the issue. I don’t have access to the code and even if I did, there is a chance that the code is now out of date with bbPress’ core development since the plugin would be a few years old.

All I can do is to clearly state the case for permalinks, their importance and request that it be placed at the highest priority. I hope you and other bbPress users add their voice so that the devs take this seriously.

Unfortunately, there is no way to prioritize issues in bbPress development. Other projects have a way to measure the community’s voice in terms of what needs to be fixed first. For example, here’s symposium’s page:

http://www.wpsymposium.com/voting/

Both buddypress and bbpress need this functionality. Like yesterday. That way issues like this do not fall through the cracks.

Of course, this is assuming that the dev team is serious about creating a 2 way communication channel with the wider community rather than a 1 way.

As Matt M. mentioned in a recent video, he measures the success of wordpress in general by how well and fast it reacts to the needs of its community. I would suggest the same applies to bbpress and buddypress.

[Asynaptic]

@tieptoep thanks but I think you’re totally misunderstanding what I and others are suggesting as a solution. Please stay with me and I’ll explain why.

To clarify:

Existing permalinks structure for forum:

mydomain.com/forums/forum/forum-name/

and if a sub-forum is created, it would be this:

mydomain.com/forums/forum/”forum-name”/”sub-forum-name”

Now, compare this to the proper way to do the permalinks:

mydomain.com/forums/”forum-name”

and if a sub-forum is created:

mydomain.com/forums/”forum-name”/”sub-forum-name”

And for each thread permalink, this is the way it is right now:

mydomain.com/forums/topic/”thread-permalink-slug”

But this puts every single forum outside the universe of their respective forum. That is, every thread exists, as a permalink, without any relevance to the forum that contains it! This is both intuitively wrong and just plain wrong for many many reasons. Threads are link “things” which belong in “boxes” (forums), which then may or may not belong in “bigger boxes” (main forums, if there are sub-forums created).

Instead, this is the proper way to do thread permalinks:

mydomain.com/forums/”forum-name”/”thread-permalink-slug”

and if the thread is created inside a sub-forum:

mydomain.com/forums/”forum-name”/”sub-forum”/”thread-permalink-slug”

Of course, the slug forums used above can be changed to “discussions” or any other word. But the main point I’m trying to make here is the relative structure of threads and forums to each other, as well as the excision of the unnecessary …/forums/forum/… double.

This is wrong, again, for many reasons. Among them, it is inelegant, unnecessary, and it introduces a very deep branch unnecessarily which makes for poor SEO.

So let’s say you have a forum about social media, under what I and others here are proposing, you would have this permalink structure:

mydomain.com/forums/social-media/

and let’s say you had sub-forums for facebook, twitter and linkedin:

mydomain.com/forums/social-media/facebook

mydomain.com/forums/social-media/twitter

mydomain.com/forums/social-media/linkedin

That makes perfect sense, right? But under the current permalinks structure, it currently is:

mydomain.com/forums/forum/social-media/

mydomain.com/forums/forum/social-media/facebook

mydomain.com/forums/forum/social-media/twitter

mydomain.com/forums/forum/social-media/linkedin

See the difference? Now that’s nothing. Wait. Let’s start some threads. Here’s where you will really see even a bigger difference that leaves you scratching your head in befuddlement.

Let’s say I write a thread in the facebook sub-forum with the heading, “I love facebook!”. In the current permalink structure, it would look like this:

mydomain.com/forums/topic/i-love-facebook

Notice that looking at this permalink, you or a search engine, has no idea that it is a topic “inside” the facebook sub-forum, which is itself inside the “social media” forum!

Instead, for some strange reason only clear to the early developers, the topic is just floating by itself in “topic land” and has no relation whatsoever to “forum land”

But it should look like this:

mydomain.com/forums/social-media/facebook/i-love-facebook

Now this permalink makes sense. For one, it follows the progressive location of the thread. First, it is on the site, second, it is within forums, third, it is in the social-media forum, and fourth, it is within the facebook sub-forum which is inside the social-media forum. And finally, the thread is called “i-love-facebook”.

Hope that makes things clear why your suggestion of simply removing the /forum/ slug does nothing to actually address what is wrong with the permalink structure of bbPress.

[Asynaptic]

@lowco2525

No, it hasn’t been fixed yet. In fact, I don’t think there is even a trac ticket!

But if you read page 1 of this thread you’ll find that it has been an issue with users for more than 7 years and brought up repeatedly.

There is (was?) even a plugin created to address the issue. The devs did not respond when I asked whether this plugin addressed the issue and if so, would it be incorporated into core.

It seems that development for bbPress has basically stalled on all fronts:
http://www.ohloh.net/p/bbpress/commits/summary

look at the graph of commits! files modified in past 30 days: 14/month (avg for past year: 35 files per month) so dev activity has fallen by more than 50%

lines modified on avg per month in past year? 21,876
lines modified on avg for previous month? 21 (no not a typo, just 21)

I think this is because most of the same team works on both buddypress and bbpress and they have been paying attention to buddypress – which is fantastic! don’t get me wrong 🙂 but this means that bbpress development has been on ice basically.

Personally I think this issue should be the highest priority because there is nothing more fundamental than permalinks. And there is nothing more wrong than the way permalinks are being done right now with bbpress.

And don’t forget, this issue has been an ongoing thorn in the side of users for 7+ years and there was an attempted solution in the form of a plugin.

[Asynaptic]

Robin, seriously? I don’t share your flippant view of this issue. If there is a wide gaping backdoor to editing posts, then it means that this feature needs to be revisited and the bug fixed.

I’m not saying that this is a critical issue or that forums all of a sudden will be thrown into disarray! lol… not at all 🙂

But I am saying that if you have a feature which says, “You can edit only within 5 minutes, not after that” then that feature **should** work exactly as described.

Currently it doesn’t. And this matters.

What’s the point of having it if it doesn’t work as it should?

I totally reject sweeping this under the rug with a shrug and the old pablum, “life’s not perfect”

I hope you see the validity of the issue I’m raising.

[Asynaptic]

Thanks for doing this for bbPress as well. I hope we get some great feedback.

May I suggest that a more granular approach would yield better information? I’m thinking of something like:
http://www.wpsymposium.com/voting/

Or a uservoice type feedback system where people can suggest ideas and others vote on them.

While trac is great for measuring feature requests and bugs, it doesn’t measure intensity, immediacy and importance weights which users may attribute to individual features or bugs.

[Asynaptic]

Alexandru, with respect, what you’ve commented is a straw-man at best and a non-sequitur at worst.

I am involved in the project within my own limitations and do contribute whenever I can with what skills I have.

It is silly to claim that for the project to work faster we need more people to “just be involved” as this neither addresses my point, nor does it reflect reality. The bbPress development team has a formal structure with several people working on the project.

My question was to point out that while they have been active in the past, things seem to have stalled.

[Asynaptic]

wow, spam, spaaaaaaaaam, spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam

SPAM

SPAM

SPAM

SPAM

[Asynaptic]

you can see wp symposium plugin developer using this type of community feedback system for his plugin:
http://www.wpsymposium.com/voting/

[Asynaptic]

spaaaaaaaaaaam

[Asynaptic]

@netweb thanks for pointing that out.

When I said ‘tipping point’ I was referring to the closing comment on the trac ticket 2031 which refers to this issue.

There have been multiple instances where the dev team has commented on a ticket being addressed depending on the ‘demand’ for it from the community. But the thing is, there exists no real way to measure such ‘demand’ other than a quasi-qualitative approach such as the number of forum requests.

My suggestion is to create a uservoice type ranking system for issues so when someone requests help or change for a specific issue, it is measured and their voice added to that appropriate issue. In this way the dev team can see very clearly and quickly which issues are at the forefront.

[Asynaptic]

there is an existing ticket but it is awaiting popular demand to be fixed:
https://bbpress.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/2031

I’m not sure exactly how ‘demand’ is measured by the dev team. There certainly has been multiple requests for help to make this change both on the forum and elsewhere on the internet.

How difficult would it be to allow for bbpress admins to toggle between a freshness date format and a date/time format? wordpress already allows for this type of dating for posts so I can’t see this as being a complicated issue.

the freshness tag shows previous conversations about this issue:

https://bbpress.org/forums/topic-tag/freshness/

Here are a few previous forum postings asking for help in changing the freshness format to a static date:

Freshness Date, Instead of ongoing Time frame

Edit or delete freshness

Change freshness to date after 24 hours

https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/how-do-you-change-the-freshness-of-post-date-format/
https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/show-exact-date-of-post-not-freshness/
https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/timestamp-posted-m-d-y-time/

there are also discussions outside of the bbpress.org forums:
http://bbshowcase.org/forums/topic/exact-timedate-in-forum-last-poster
http://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/77441/how-to-edit-bbp-forum-freshness-link-format

Is this enough to meet the ‘demand’ quota? most people have been searching for this going back many years without any resolution.

If this isn’t enough demand, then what would be?

[Asynaptic]

sorry to bother others on the thread but I’m trying to contact @hillofbeans (is there a way to pm? or something?)

thanks!

[Asynaptic]

I forgot to ask, @johnjamesjacoby or @netweb is there a ticket in trac right now to fix this issue? If not, can you please create one?

thank you!

[Asynaptic]

@hillofbeans I understand, my comments above were more regarding the general approach to the development and involving the community as a partner, they were not directed specifically at this one issue

[Asynaptic]

@hillofbeans with respect, I don’t think that is what’s happening exactly. The bbpress team is not jumping up and down with joy to tackle this issue but as jjj said:

bbPress and WordPress are designed to allow those with specific needs and wants to customize the codebase, and contribute the changes they needed up-stream to the parent project. If this is something multiple people would like, I suggest you group up and build it. If it works, and more people want it, we absorb it into bbPress core.

This is why I searched and found previous discussions in the forum and a solution which was arrived at several years ago via a plugin (See above). It doesn’t seem like the creator of the plugin took it anywhere though, other than sharing it on the bbpress forums. They didn’t create a plugin officially at the plugin.wordpress.org or update it, etc.

If I could make a constructive suggestion to the bbpress team, it would be that while they are very busy and it can seem like we are just throwing constant suggestions, critiques, etc. at them, it would be wise to set up a method to gauge the community’s interest or desire for specific issues.

This can be done very simply with something like uservoice or similar ‘suggestion box’ apps where suggestions are shown and community members here can vote on them to show their interest towards them and move them up the priority list.

I made a similar suggestion to the buddypress team and I read from jjj or boone that this inspired the recent survey (hopefully we’ll see the results of said survey soon!)

That was great, btw! at the same time, a survey is a very short lived ‘snapshot’ whereas a uservoice type idea collector and sifter would be continuous

of course, I’m not at all suggesting that we convert the bbpress or buddypress projects to ‘mob rule’! nope. just that when we have such a communication channel, things like this specific issue would be addressed (rather than linger for 7+ years) because there would be transparency and a collaboration between the wider community and the dev team

🙂

[Asynaptic]

I would also like to add that this issue has been a concern and raised as long back as 7 years ago:

https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/permalinks-slugs-modification-removing-forum/

nicer slug url rewrite plugin (done!)

Name based permalinks without page/ and forums/

Nicer permalinks plugin messes up the forum sitemap

looks like someone came up with a solution to this, just needs to be checked and integrated into bbpress core (name of plugin: bbpress “nicer permalinks plugin”)

[Asynaptic]

boy, I don’t know what to say other than what the majority here are saying:

it just is common sense to have the URL structure to be:

1) forums/sub-forum-slug/ instead of forums/forum/sub-forum-slug

and

2) a specific topic or thread URL should include the sub-forum slug like this:

forums/sub-forum/topic-slug (nice, logical progression of general> more specific> most specific location of info)

NOT as it is now:

forums/forum/topic-slug (this DOESN’T show sub-forum where this thread belongs! and it is just plain weird to have forums/forum/topic )

PLEASE, please, p l e a s e change this. For the sake of common sense, for the sake of UI/UX, for the sake of SEO…. for so many reasons.

Thank you.

[Asynaptic]

How do I remove "Voices"?

this might also help for changing other things:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/bbpress-string-swap/

[Asynaptic]

where do you put the shortcode?

[Asynaptic]

just realized that the way I worded it may seem to suggest that the “bbpress post topics plugin” is being used here to provide this functionality but acually I don’t know if that is the case or not, just that forum threads instead of comments are here on a live site and working

/clarification

[Asynaptic]

@netweb LoL no worries 😉 thank you for all your work on the project!

[Asynaptic]

@netweb

Thanks Stephen, so it is what I thought it was! That comments is replaced with forum postings/threads.

So this is already being used here while it isn’t available in the existing core?

🙂

[Asynaptic]

@netweb unless I’m missing something your reply was simply to link to the blog post and forum discussion of the announcement of version 2.5:

@synaptic Look at this actual blog post, instead of comments it is this forum discussion

Blog Post: https://bbpress.org/blog/2013/11/bbpress-2-5-released/
Discussion: https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/bbpress-2-5-is-out/

Yes, I’ve read the blog post. That is where I got “replacing comments with bbPress topics” text snippet (which I mention above).

I’ve also read the forum thread discussing and congratulating the release. That doesn’t explain what “replacing comments with bbPress topics” is either.

I do not understand what this is referring to. I’m still waiting to hear an answer.

thank you