seems to be too hard a question !
For whatever reasons 2.6 doesn’t seem to be progressing, and no-one seems able to tell us why. JJJ seems to have disappeared from the authors of bbpress.
I think you can have two attitudes to this.
1. That bbpress id dead, and going no-where
2. that bbpress is mature, and that there are lots of plugins out there which add the functionality that you need, built on a stable solid base.
Given FB, Twitter, Instagram, pinterest etc. it is easy to see forums as yesterday’s technology, but the content in the list above seems to be transient, with no sorting, logic or permanence. Read and forget.
With forums you get logic, easy to read threads, and search capability – so I think forums still have their place.
So if you are like me, you have bbpress, but also have several other plugins (including my own published ones) that give my forums the functionality they need.
so go into wordpress plugins and search for both bbp and bbpress to see what is available.
@mimbelli
I am going to sum it up really quick why bbPress is taking so long.
bbPress has few contributors to the plugins core.
Less contributors > Less contributions > Longer release time
While it would be better to have.
More contributors > More contributions > Shorter release time
We have to get more developers interested in the project somehow to get more contributors and contributions.
@Robin W Clear and loud.
Regarding you point #2 I respect your opinion even if as a user I have a completely different POV 🙂
I strongly believe in a tool like a forum and I’ve been migrating my contents (some of them 15 years old) through several products because “content is the value”.
In my experience (I’m not a php software developer but I’m a content creator) plugins has been a PITA since my first phpBB forum and the main culprit to CMS maintenance and upgrade.
While I’m sure that WordPress will not disappear in few years I cannot swear for sure on each plugin. What will happen when a plugin I used throughout all my site will not be upgraded because the developer went on Mars? I became very careful to choose my plugin since it happens several times in my life.
Of course I do not pretend that wp or bbpress should have everything in their core but imho it’s really strange that to have the most basic features for a modern forum I need to install several plugins. (my old thread: https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/some-question-before-migration/#post-173383)
The most perused sentence about bbpress is “bbPress is forum software with a twist from the creators of WordPress”. It communicate me an assurance on the quality and stability of the product. In other words: we are here to stay. On the other hand, being so plugin dependent you communicate to me exactly the contrary and I’m scared.
End of the rant/Looking forward to see 2.6
rant is fine – I am just a user of the software expressing an opinion 🙂
Just another reply to you @mimbelli about your opinion on using plugins for most of the features.
While I’m sure that WordPress will not disappear in few years I cannot swear for sure on each plugin. What will happen when a plugin I used throughout all my site will not be upgraded because the developer went on Mars? I became very careful to choose my plugin since it happens several times in my life.
Make sure to use some quality plugins from very good developers. Most of the plugins I mentioned in your original topic were pretty good quality in my opinion.
If you did go the route of mainly using BuddyPress, GD bbPress Toolbox, bbPress Pencil Unread, then that should be good enough. BuddyPress is very actively developed, GD bbPress Toolbox is actively developed (its a paid plugin) and adding tons of features you wanted even report post functionality, and the Pencil Unread plugin is now improving its plugin to include features that are in other unread posts plugins.
