[grassrootspa]

@ johnhiler:

You make a lot of excellent points. It’s funny you bring up the memory issues (had to move my news website site from Godaddy to my own server because of that very issue with WordPress).

This is a great community and have no doubt it’s going to be a fun year for bbPress. Can’t wait to see where things go in the next six months!

[johnhiler]

@grassrootspa – It sounds like there are two different issues being discussed:

1) bbPress needs a Facebook connect feature

2) That feature (along with a bunch of others) should be in the core

1) FB Connect

On the first point… typically the way new features get built is to either:

* build it yourself, or to

* hire someone to build it for you.

The third path is to try and convince others to build it for you for free… but I’ve very rarely ever seen that work.

I’ve actually read stats that show that Facebook Connect can greatly uptick registration:

http://www.businessinsider.com/2008/12/facebook-connect-still-tiny-will-grow-fast

So it may be worth building. But it’s very very difficult to convince someone to develop plugins for free, especially when we don’t have many (any?) active plugin developers… so that basically just leaves the options to build it yourself or to hire someone to build it for ya.

If you tell the developer that it will be open source, maybe they will discount their fee? Or you could ask other users to contribute to the fee…

2) All/most major features should be in the Core

WordPress has put a ton of features into the Core. It’s gotten to the point where even smallish sites can’t run without a caching plugin:

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001105.html

It’s not just CPU – the latest versions also eat up lots of memory just to serve up a single page:

http://www.oceanlight.com/log/wordpress-28-memory-usage-and-bloat.html

I’m not sure if this Canonical Plugins initiative would help reduce this bloat or not:

https://wordpress.org/development/2009/12/canonical-plugins/

We don’t have to predict that moving most features into the core will increase bloat and slow down servers… it’s already happened on the WordPress side of things. I think most smaller blogs don’t mind – you can just add caching and be fine for a while. It’s a lot harder for larger sites… I’ve wrestled with scaling my blog, and I’m on a dedicated server. But Matt mentioned that scaling is not really an issue, so I must be missing something:

http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2009/08/28/podcast-25-wordpress-matt-mullenweg/

I think it will be a lot harder to cache bbPress than it will be to cache WordPress, since community sites update so many more times than to a blog. So the WordPress strategy to put a lot of features into the core and address scaling through a caching option… probably won’t be as effective on the bbPress side of things. So that makes it even more important to keep the bbPress core clean.

In any case, I don’t want to be a downer here – there’s still hope for the bbPress platform, if we can unite around keeping the core engine “simple, fast, and elegant” (especially fast!!). If not, then it will be tough to keep the platform viable and we risk losing what progress we’ve made so far.

[chrisjdavisorg]

I was informed by the support folks at $work that the support forums I built for them were broken. After some investigation I found that all the user accounts, including the original admin account are showing up in the admin as Inactive (no role).

How in the world did this happen exactly? The accounts are migrated from an existing non bbpress db upon login, and we don’t send the new user email. Is there a step that I missed somewhere that stops the accounts from being deactivated after a timeout? e.g. Is there an account verification step that I wasn’t aware of that has now been tripped, deactivating all the accounts?

Really lost here as to where to do next. All the role data in the usermeta table is fine, and I can’t find any references to any verification process in the code. Any help out there?

[grassrootspa]

@ (my affable sparring partner) kevinjohngallagher:

1) re: the 350 million facebook users, there was just a story on Mashable ‘Facebook’s Road to 350 Million Users’: (http://mashable.com/2009/12/02/facebook-350-million-users/)

“Mark Zuckerberg’s note detailing Facebook’s latest privacy changes also contained an announcement about another important milestone for Facebook: 350 million users.”

Facebook’s own website: (http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics):”‘More than 350 million active users”

I’m just going with what they said

2) I don’t have official ‘stats’ but can tell you Facebook connect is put to use on my site (I run Intense Debate, which offers various ways folks can leave comments). Twitter connect is occasionally as well (but not as much as FB connect) My general point is this: it’s optional and it and brings new folks into the discussion. IntenseDebate was smart to incorporate several different optional login methods! From my standpoint, I am very happy to offer FB connect to my readers

3) “So, who are these magical little elves that are going to build and then maintain all these features??” (BTW, I too am a South Park fan so I immediately got your reference):

Build and maintain all those features? You are missing my point…if existing popular plugins like ‘topic views’ or ‘bbcode’ are built into the core a third party no longer needs to maintain the plugin and make sure they don’t break in bbPress 1.0, bbPress 1.1, etc. They are STANDARDIZED and can be further fleshed out! (WordPress example: Just like WordPress did with the automatic updater and ability to thread comments…) _ck_ came up with some really slick and widely used plugins, and she is probably won’t be maintaining them from here on out. Maybe stuff like ‘BBcode Buttons’ should continue as a Core features?

Even though we both disagree on some of these things, we both want the same thing…bbPress to be more widely used & developed and the bbpress community to grow (those that make plugins, templates, etc). I would also like to see bbPress to emerge as a vBulletin alternative.

Again, things like Voices, gravatars, profile pics, profile occupation and location, tags etc could have all been simply left as plugins, but they were incorporated into the core. My overall point (forget FB connect for a sec) is that things like Voices, gravatars, profile pics, profile occupations, location, and other features are part of the core and that is a very good thing! It makes it easier for bbPress to be more widely used because a separate plugin is not needed for each (good for newbies, stability, and so community can further flesh them out via plugins or themes) There is less danger of those features breaking (they are now features of the Core, not separate plugins). The use of those features is standardized so plugins and themes can be developed to make use of those features without requiring a plugin to use each.

In a nutshell, I think things like bbcode, topic views, and some other plugins should sit alongside Voices, gravatars, etc as features that should be incorporated into the Core.

kevinjohngallagher, I love your passion. I am someone who is probably not as skilled as you are with computers and technology (17FB accounts…you sound busy!) I’m not a developer, just some newbie that taught himself how to run WordPress and bbPress by messing around with the stuff.

We aren’t going to agree on Facebook-connect (it’s a tougher sell than some of the others), but I would wager that there is probably a popular plugin or two that you might also agree should logically be part of the core for stability and out-of-the-box-feature issues. Thoughts?

[chrishajer]

Q1 – many people want to share user details, share WordPress and bbPress functions and get a similar look between WordPress and bbPress.

Q2. Yes. One problem arises when you want your navigation from WordPress to be present in bbPress. Most people want to do that with wp_list_pages or get_header or something, and those functions aren’t normally available in bbPress unless you integrate somehow. If you just want a link back to the WordPress site in bbPress, you can just edit your template files. Getting current navigation in bbPress that matches your WordPress site is harder and some people like to do “deep integration” to have access to WordPress functions in bbPress. If you don’t care about that, don’t integrate.

Q3. Yes. It’s a little harder but will probably have a better end result. There were a couple of bbPress <> WordPress plugins, but they’re out of date now. If you post what you mean by “integrate posts” someone will help with how to do that without resorting to integration.

[pittsleyb]

Is the only reason people want to integrate the two is for cross users? If I dont care about sharing the database for users then cant i simply edit my bbpress theme to match my wordpress theme and then cross link them?

Can I integrate posts without integration and sharing the database?

[biggerbyfar]

This is a really important requirement for me! The _ck_ one doesn’t work at all for bbpress v1.0.x

Any others out there?

[kevinjohngallagher]

@GrassRootsPA

Sir,

We don’t agree on these things, but its very cool we can discuss them openly, and in a manner such as this. My hats off to ya’.

On my site I offer Twitter and FB login via IntenseDebate and get people to use them all the time for commenting.

That’s awesome. Could you garnish us with some figures please mate, because the other figures and stats that i could find (Alexa etc.) all point to a poor take up of FBconnect, and a very low “new user” clickthrough – unless replying to a post from facebook (have to get that caveat in there because those stas look good).

Number of Users?

Number of Users who used to signing normally and now use FBconnect?

Number of Users who have never signed in normally but have only used FBconnect?

That would be really useful to us all i think, to put it in context.

You may call it the flavor of the week, but Facebook has more than 350 million active users.

It doesn’t, it has over 200million unique accounts, but it doesn’t have even 200million unique people (i personally run 17 FB accounts between myself, my company, and the charities i help out).

Dont get me wrong, the site is both huge and popular, but its not gotten the number of people that some folks claim. Heck according to Facebook’s Mark Z in February, when it overtook MySpace as the #1 social networking site in the US (again – in the US), that half of its userbase logs in once a day, and 80% of its userbase logs in at least once a month. Now in the month that it overtook MySpace, Alexa claims for 350million page views, its imply cant have 350million people. But that slightly off-topic, so lets bring it back.

If number of possible users is the main positive for FacebookConnect then it fails, as it actually comes 4th. So does that mean we should build FBconnect after writing the other 3 into the core? Or are we going with FBconnect because you use it…

1. GoogleFreindFinder (or whatever its new branding is: apparently GoogleSingleSignon) has access to everyone with a (specific type of) gmail account and everyone on Okurt – it covers a ridiculous number of people (worldwide).
2. MSN passport has access to everyone with an MSN or Yahoo email address for single signin.
3. MySpace uses OpenID so OpenID has access to the third most users.
4. Facebook comes in fourth (and there’s a big big gap betwen 3rd and 4th)

Also, its not so much that Facebook is the “flavour of the month”, its just that we’ve seen this all before. The dominant website in its field, looks like no-one will ever topple it and BAM, yesterdays news. The long you spent developing for the internet (this is my 15th paid year), the more you see the simple fact that content is what engages people, regardless of systems or context.

The reason we’re so adamant about this subject is not because we’re being stubborn, its because we’ve had this conversation before. We had it with AoL, we had it when Microsfot rolled out MyPasspost/Hailstorm, we had it when Microsfot rolled out Live, we had it with OpenID, we had it with myspace, We had it with GoogleSingleSignon. I, and in deed we, are not knocking Favebook or FBconnect – its just that its software owned and maintained by a company outwith BBpress, and sooner or later they are going to dip in popularity or make such a large change to the API that the standard BBpress will fail with no notice.

We know this, becuse they already did it 3 times this year

Imagine (as a user…please separate yourself from the admin process) visiting a forum and knowing you can immediately log in and join the discussion with your FB account.

1) You’re going to need a facebook account. There are not as many people with FB accounts as i think you think there are. Not to mention, Non-white, Non-North-America, Non-College-Educated, Non-Under-25s, Non-broadband-users are FAR FAR FAR less likely to have one (80% of FB users tick all those boxes).

2) If you are so engrossed/captivated/moved by the content of a forum post that you feel the need to add to the conversation, is registering really a deterant? As a user, if i really want to comment/reply/converse, i usually see what the registration process is like. I know from my phpBB forums, the drop off after the registration page is loaded is HUGE, and the drop off after a failed registration is over90%. I suggest you check your stats too. Alot more poeple go to registration pages than its presumed, but the registering process is where it ends.

3) Surely, if registration is the problem, our time is better suited on making that easier for the user.

4) Purely from an end user perspective (and not an admin), i dont want to use FBconnect, i can just use anonymous posting and thats the even easier option! FBconnect is a half way house for you as both a user and an admin, but it requires a massive amount of work for the BBpress team – again for a feature that not common, not worldwide, nor often-used.

Matt’s made a comments re: bbPress and forums a while back along the lines that forums really haven’t changed that much in the past ten years. Exactly. Allow stuff like FB connect to encourage conversations and bring them into the next century!

Surely good conversation and topics encourage conversations and not FBconnect. I doubt many people find a forum very boring, but feel compelled to join in just because the website lets them log in via FBconnect.

You know, when somethings been the same for a long time (is basic, usable without too much instruction, and does exaclty what it says on the tin) there usually isn’t a whole lot you can do to make it better; and on the rare occasion when there is… its usually come form a total overhaul and not adding to the original.

I say that because much smarter people than you and I have been using Forums for a greater number of years that either of us, and no-one has yet came up with a better format. There’s an inate desire in humans to make things better, but that does not mean that something can always be improved greatly simply because its worked the same way for a great amount of time.

Also, single signons became availible last century, heck last millenium, and they didn’t take off in the last 10 years because people didn’t want or like them; so somehow integrating FBconnect isn’t going to magically make forums current or “this century”.

I do not understand the opposition to making FB’s core more robust feature wise.

What is the harm in including additional features

We’ve had 1 developer (working close to part-time) on BBpress for 2 years.

We’ve had NO developer working on BBpress since July 15th.

The two main plugin suppliers have left the project.

The wiki / developer documentation is now a loans/spam/porn website

So, who are these magical little elves that are going to build and then maintain all these features??

It kind of reminds me of the Gnomes in South Park http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnomes_(South_Park).

1. Features

2. ???

3. Kill vBulletin

It seems like step 2, the bit where the work actually comes in, is just presumed to happen magically. Which is the only way it would happen, given that right now our development team consists of… no-one.

Adding more features to the core standardizes those features so they do not break in future builds

Adding thigns to the core doesn’t automatically stabalise them, a developer stablises them.

Again, that developer is currently… no-one.

Thats the issue BBpress has had for the last year. Sam added loads of things to the core, changed loads of functions, hardcoded alot of template functions into the core, and has now gone without telling anyone until months after (N.B. This was Sam’s pain emplyment, and is not a criticism of the man himself – merely a statement of the facts).

These things dont stabalize themselves, they need development, and adding them to the core does not guarentee that, all it does is guarenteee that time is taken away form other things.

allows even better plugins to be unveiled to customize them further.

BBpress 1.0.2 has bee a stable RC release for over 6 months now. Where are all these plug-ins? Where are all the plugin developers rushing to add functionality? Where are all the massively different customisations? *tumbleweed*

Let’s help bbPress evolve and become more robust featurewise so it buries vBulletin

Robust is the polar opposite of harcoding reliance on an extrnal and ever-changing API into core.

And mate, we’re not here to bury vBulletin, thats not the goal; we’re here to make forum software in accordance with the Philosphy and Features on the about page. IF you’re ever wondering if something fits into BBpress, always check https://bbpress.org/about/ and see if it fits into those 5 design philosophies. If it doesn’t, chances are, it wont be going into BBpress.

Take care, and good health.

Kev

[Ben L.]

Install bbPress. On one of the installation steps it allows you to integrate with WP.

[Pomy]

can anybody tell me what should i do for next step?

[Ben L.]

The plugin (as far as I can tell) is https://bbpress.org/plugins/topic/wordpress-bbpress-syncronization/

There is a settings screen – you might have to edit some settings to be able to make it work.

[chrishajer]

What version of bbPress, WordPress and plugin are you using? Also, the URL to the plugin please.

[amonsul]

Hi!

I can’t enable the plugin. It says:

Not allowed: [bbPress part] Invalid anonymous user id

Can you help me?

Thanks!

[gerikg]

https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/wp-integration-coockie-does-not-work#post-61969

I updated it…

[gerikg]

daudev, I messed up on step

4 Open bb-config.php (in the bbpress folder) do the same thing here. With the SAME keys you put in the wordpress file put in the bb-config file around line # 41-45. ***You have to add BB_ to the front of the names. Example: BB_AUTH_KEY to all eight.*** Save. Keep the file open for now.

[gerikg]

SpinDoctor, OMG i can’t believe I forgot!!!! thank you I was going insane.

1 When installing wordpress/bbpress do NOT use “www.” Example: use bbpress.org not http://www.bbpress.org and use the same database. You do not need to change the prefix, I prefer you don’t because you’ll run into problem later.

2 Make sure bbpress is in a folder in wordpress. example: wordpress/bbpress/ not on the same level.

3 The folder does not have to be named bbpress, most people make it forum or forums.

*After successfully installing both programs open wp-config.php (in the wordpress folder) file. Around line # 45-# 48 you’ll see define(‘AUTH_KEY’…. go to this URL (https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/salt) and get the EIGHT keys and REPLACE the FOUR keys that are there. Save. Keep the file open for now.

4 Open bb-config.php (in the bbpress folder) do the same thing here. With the SAME keys you put in the wordpress file put in the bb-config file around line # 41-45. You have to add BB_ to the front of the names. Example: BB_AUTH_KEY to all eight. Save. Keep the file open for now.

5 Clear your cache on your browser. Log into your bbpress dashboard and go to Settings->Wordpress Integration-> WordPress Administrator should be keymaster. Every other option should be member for now. WordPress address (URL) should be the URL again NO www. Blog address (URL) the same as before. The last 3 should be LOCKED if not repeat the steps 3&4.

6 Login to your wordpress dashboard. Go to Plugins->Add New-> search for “bbPress Integration” it should be the first one. Install it and activate.

7 Go to Settings-> bbPress Integration. Enter the bbPress URL without the www. Your plugins URL leave blank. Click on Save Changes. On the bottom box you’ll see some text copy it. Most likely it will say “define( ‘COOKIEPATH’, ‘/’ );”

8 Paste the line in wp-config.php file around line # 16 (MUST be on top. Don’t know why) and paste it in bb-config.php in line # 13 (Must be on top). Save. You can delete the plugin, it’s no longer needed.

9 Clear your cache on your browser and you’re done.

Known Problems

*Two different database, one for WP and one for BBP, does not always work.

*Changing the database prefix. There are tutorials out there that tell you to do it, just don’t.

*Hosting companies that offer free databases, have buggy databases.

*BBpress not being in WordPress folder. I don’t think the plugin takes that into account.

*When you upgrade from an older version (wordpress/bbpress) the XX-config.php files are different than what you already have. Check wp-config.php against wp-config-sample.php & bb-config.php against bb-config-sample.php should be fairly simple.

[Pomy]

ok I’ve taken complete and partial backup for all tables…so what’s next dear chrishajer?

[decgeo]

I am using EasyMemberPro for my member site. I would like to add bbpress for a forum, but only for paid members. Is there a way to pass membership data so an ID and password will be required to enter the forum?

[chrishajer]

yes, it’s possible. I would back up the complete database if you can, but if not, at least the user table and usermeta, because that’s what bbPress will mess with when it tries to integrate. Backup everything first then give it a shot.

[chrishajer]

> What is the harm in including additional features

The harm is that there are a limited number of resources, so prioritizing what gets worked on is important to using those resources wisely.

I’m not looking at it at all from the perspective of “now I have to use this” I’m looking at it from the perspective of “we have XX hours this month to work on bbPress, what should we be working on?”

[Spindoctor]

Thank you for your help!

I finally made it!

I learned a lot about cookies and databases, but in fact, after 2 days, the problem was easy to solve:

After copying those 8 keys to my wp-config.php, I copied THE SAME lines to my bb-config.php. It took me quite a long time to find out, that most variables in bbpress have “BB_” in the front.

After renaming “AUTH_KEY” to “BB_AUTH_KEY” and so on, everything was working as supposed.

Maybe pointing this fact out would make this instruction even more foolproof!?

Thank you for your help!!!!

Spindoctor

[grassrootspa]

I strongly disagree (respectfully) with all of you.

bbPress should try to make it as EASY as possible for folks to join in the conversation. Short of anonymous forum posting (which can get personal and go to the gutter quick) FB connect is the next best thing to someone registering traditionally. Heck, they are essentially signing their name to their stuff! On my site I offer Twitter and FB login via IntenseDebate and get people to use them all the time for commenting.

You may call it the flavor of the week, but Facebook has more than 350 million active users. Imagine (as a user…please separate yourself from the admin process) visiting a forum and knowing you can immediately log in and join the discussion with your FB account. I’ve used FB connect myself on some sites where I would not have bothered registering. Again, this should be an optional feature a la Intense Debate’s interface where it can be turned on or off.

@ kevinjohngallagher (btw, I appreciate your comments, shame we disagree on some of this stuff):

“Maybe i’ve got this wrong, but BBpress is forum software. Forum’s of this format have been around for 20 years now, and have gotten along with without Facebook Connect. If this has changed, can someone pelase let us know?”

Matt’s made a comments re: bbPress and forums a while back along the lines that forums really haven’t changed that much in the past ten years. Exactly. Allow stuff like FB connect to encourage conversations and bring them into the next century! Let’s help bbPress evolve and become more robust featurewise so it buries vBulletin!

[Pomy]

Hi to all………..

I want to integrate bbpress with my existing working blog i.e. http://www.softinfo.info …. is it possible to integrate fresh bbpress to my working blog without reinstall wordpress?

also tell me what kind of database backup i need?

thank in advance!!

[kevinjohngallagher]

If anything, this situation appears to fall into the issue i raised over a year ago here: https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/parent-childrelationship-in-forum-loop

In the discussion that ensured, it transpired that BBpress doesn’t incorporate linaegae or heritage in anyway.

EDIT: OOps link may be wrong:

BBpress. Mindset, features and where now? discuss…

and specifically https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/bbpress-mindset-features-and-where-now-discuss#post-20777 really help to see the fundamental of BBpress not understanding lineage/heritage in the core.

[citizenkeith]

Wow, I’ve been using bbPress for 2 years and never saw any mention of the effects of analytics code.

Before changing htaccess:

0.518 – 15 queries

After:

0.146 – 15 queries

(and lower)