@stagger-lee
I have seen this list but it is not the same as Feature plugins are for WordPress core.
Im trying to spruce up the page on the bbPress codex.
Not of things on list has anything to do with me personally, just using other popular forum scripts as reference.
Anything that BuddyPress already has as a feature and putting it into bbPress is a BIG decision to make, this could shy away from the plugin integration with BuddyPress in bbPress, but it would make bbPress stand on its own compared to other forum solutions though. Most of the features people want could be added by just installing BuddyPress with bbPress. I am starting to think if users want something like Vbull or IP Board they install should install BuddyPress to add any social network features. If users want a simple forum just use bbPress.
Here is what I think of your plugin list, it is just my opinion, my opinion could change depending on how you reply to how I feel about this. Maybe tell us a reason of why to incorporate these features into core vs a plugin. I just want to know what you think, and please do not just tell use that this forum is doing this and that bbPress should have do it also, make it an interesting discussion.
- Live preview – maybe bring TinyMCE back, as long as it doesn’t have issues
- Report content – Josh Eaton’s plugin I think personally is pretty darn good and well developed to stay being a great plugin for awhile. Might have to see how his plugin favors in the 2015 survey for any core considerations though.
- Ignore User – I don’t know really know, this might need some additional functionality somewhere else, maybe plugin territory.
- bbPress moderation panel separate from backend – I could see improvements on front-end moderation, maybe not exactly similar to the way the backend is set up, but I have ideas.
- Notifications – BuddyPress can add this..
- Make topics/forums read, unread (dont know if it is already in the core) – Not in core, toss up if in core or not, lots of plugins to choose from.already, do not know which one is the most optimal for most sites.
- bbPress TinyMce plugin – Maybe bring TinyMCE back, as long as it doesn’t have issues
- Reply titles – I don’t see a benefit from this, there is already a plugin for this though.
- View counts – I had this implemented on one of my forums using WP PostViews, after awhile I got to thinking that the voice and reply count really do show how popular a certain topic is, especially the voice count. Because the higher the voice count amount the more participation from users and not just back and forth between two people. Plus this will bulk up your database with a bunch of data.
- Topics for posts (very important even if not used on all installations) – Something like this is set for core. The creating a new topic for each blog post and linking to the topic where the comment form is gold. Entirely replacing the comments is where I had thoughts about this and I started to question possible issues that might come forth from this, and also the set up needed to make this work flawlessly.
- Online / Offline status – Don’t know really, I don’t really care either way, it is neat though.
- bbPress Polls (not shortcode based) – Maybe someone should just fork _ck_’s version of polls and make it work for bbPress v2, but this in my opinion this should stay plugin territory.
- Attachments – bbPress definitely needs more support for the import of attachments from other forum solutions, but managing them might shift to BuddyPress because they have the attachment API now, and BuddyPress might handle it better. I could see a simple image upload button in toolbar though.
- Move topics / replies between subforums – Yeah probably needs to be core. Maybe just topics with its own replies, not single replies??
- Avatar management – Same thing with attachments, needs more support for the import of avatars, managing them might be considered a toss up too, maybe BuddyPress/plugin territory, maybe core.
- Like / Vote topics, replies (I personally would never use this one, but..) – Probably plugin territory, I have seen some great plugins for this that are compatible with bbPress though. This also gives the user to have more choices on what to use, a 5 star rating, thumb voting, up down rating, like only topics. There are lots of choices.
- New plugin that makes it easy to add custom fields and add them where you need (this one is not referenced by other forum scripts).- I think you could use Advanced Custom Fields, but I am not entirely sure where you are going with this one??
Take some of those plugis from your list and give them to bbPress core developers. Or ask original developers to sign some of you on list of plugin Authors. For those developers who dont have much free time you have some plugins literally made from one-two PHP files. Just as it is a GPL take ownership from todays developers, or cooperate with them as co-maintainer Author.
Well this is tough sometimes too, contributing is one thing but taking ownership is another. Some devs might not see eye to eye, some have probably have gotten most of their income based on a very popular bbPress plugin.
There are plugins that I have suggested merging into core because they seem to improve areas that bbPress already has, the plugin seemed simple enough to consider thinking about since it is very commonly requested, and also that it would make life easier in some cases. I have also contacted a few developers if they wanted to contribute some have said they would like to see what they made into core, and others have not replied back.
Also some plugins could be very small, that might not mean put it in the plugin anyway.
There is not a lot of core devs in bbPress as one might think to start taking over some plugins while bbPress would have a bug that needs to be fixed, testing, code improvements, and other features added to core that may not exactly be a plugin on WordPress.
If you mean just any other active plugin developer to ask them to take over stuff, well I can’t really tell what they are good at besides making their own plugin. And I don’t want to seem bossy by asking people to do stuff that they might not agree to or have time to.
All those names of developers are very active in core community. Developers of bbPress plugins are not.
Either they abandon plugin and lose lust, dissapear.
WordPress core is very active compared to bbPress, but they are two different things. One is a plugin the other is the entire CMS. Other forum solutions are CMS’s to themselves but bbPress is just a plugin.
If there are some plugins that are abandoned and do not have an alternative/fork that you think the plugin should be resurrected and be contributed to, you can say which plugins here.
I think I got most of your points, if I missed one point it out. Try not to be rude at all or come off as rude, just have a decent discussion.
