[@sadr Participant 16 years, 2 months ago]

But you certainly are not going to get anyone who is NOT using WordPress to install WordPress just to create a forum. There are far better options out there.

You’re probably right. Yet allow me to give an example of how major plugins like bbPress and BuddyPress complement WordPress in a way that greatly adds to its appeal (i.e. grows the customer base beyond those interested in WordPress)

Much like WordPress, our project (jMonkeyEngine) is a continuation of someone else’s work. When we picked up the reins of the jmonkeyengine.com website, we were stuck with three separate content systems (SMF, DokuWiki, WordPress) and a mess of custom code. We looked at several options, like:

– Extend SMF (no doubt the heart of our community activities) into a full-scale CMS

– Tie all systems together with a solution like Atlassian’s Crowd

– Replace our custom front page with Joomla! and use JFusion to tie all four tightly together.

– Replace everything with a widely extended Joomla!

We practically tried all of those options and more in practice, either in testing environments or on our live site. Meanwhile I’d been looking at complete ‘community solutions’, like Elgg, OpenWack, JomSocial, BuddyPress…

(I definitely looked at Drupal as well, but they just didn’t seem to have anything near as simple as say JomSocial that just goes ‘boom, now you can start build your community).

Then bbPress came to BuddyPress, and I made a decision. I proposed an overhaul and we got moving:

http://www.jmonkeyengine.com/forum/index.php?topic=13934.0

The only reason we’re not spamming press-boards with ‘look at us!’ links yet is because we made the decision to move everything over at once, and that includes the risky decision of adopting the BuddyPress-Wiki plugin (every other essential has been covered by core features) to replace our DokuWiki. With D.P. Cartwright’s dedicated help we’re just about there though.

Erm, point ahoy!

So the point I’m trying to make is, we never stopped to consider WordPress as a CMS, until BuddyPress arrived as the major complement to fulfill our every need in one package, as opposed to 20+ plugins. Having used WordPress for my own portfolio page and general sandbox play I already knew how intuitive (extremely so when compared to Joomla!) and easy to extend it is. When the last remaining piece of the puzzle arrived, the choice was a no-brainer. I imagine many will come to the same realization with bbPress.

I know I did not prove you wrong; I just figured people might find this brief case study interesting.