So frustrated!
I installed BBPress yesterday. I’m trying to set up a private forum for about a dozen authors on our site, so we can ask questions and learn from each other regarding using wordpress or the type of content we want to create.

First Question. I used the bbpress shortcode to add the forum to a page, just as a test. http://www.veganish.world/forums That went well (there is a public forum there, just as a test), but the thing is, how do I add the registered users for the private forum? The 12 people who will have access? I’ve looked in Settings, and I’ve looked under Forums, in the left-hand side bar in WordPress, and I can’t find anything.

I installed Robin’s Private Groups plugin today, thinking that would help … still not finding anything there either, regarding how to MANUALLY add registered users who are pre-approved to view the content in the forums. ARGH.

Such a simple and crucial thing, I don’t know why I can’t find it.

Second Question. Once I figure out how to register a new user, I have a question … can I make it so that if this persons is already logged in at wordpress.com (as they would need to be, to upload new blog posts), they instantly have access to the FAQ author forums, without having to log into anything else?

My web site is http://www.veganish.world, but I don’t see how that would be helpful as I just have two (2) general questions, noted above.

If you go to http://www.veganish.world/forums, you might see a public forum that I posted as a test yesterday, before I realized I need private forums, etc.

Thank you!
Raquelita Dee

[@robin-w Moderator 2 years, 1 month ago]

ok, bbpress just uses wordpress users, so anything that registers wordpress users will create users for the forums.

You probably don’t need the private groups plugin, so deactivate that for the moment.

So set the forum to private.

then decide how you would like your users to register.

a) If you just want anyone to be able to register, then

dashboard>settings>general and tick ‘anyone can register’

You can then create a registration page (Dashboard>pages>add new) and put this shortcode in it

[bbp-register]

then add that page to your menu.

b) if you want to ‘vet’ new users, then use a contact form plugin such as ‘contact form 7’ to create a registration form asking whatever questions you want. Set that form to email to whoever, and they then create the user (dashboard>users<add new), and either use wordpress to email the user the password (there is a tick box on the user creation, or copy the password, and send an email to the user yourself.

c) or use one of the many wordpress registration plugins (https://wordpress.org/plugins/search/register/)

The choice is yours 🙂

[@veganishdotworld Participant 2 years, 1 month ago]

I just found another question someone was asking, and apparently one sets up the users for BBPress forum in the USERS section of wordpress. OK, that would be REALLY GREAT if that were mentioned somewhere in the welcome information for BBpress. Also, a codex is mentioned. How would one find and access the codex?

Anyway, I sent into the users section in wordpress. I found that there are now BBpress style roles listed like keymaster, participant, etc. But here’s the rub … it does not allow the person to be BOTH an author and a participant, for example. What the heck ?????!!???? How is that going to work? All I want is for all of the authors and admins to have access to a private forum, ideally using their wordpress login as the handshake because they are already logged in and verified that way.

It seems like the capability is almost there, but … what am I missing?

Thank you!
Raquelita Dee

[@veganishdotworld Participant 2 years, 1 month ago]

Hi Robin,

Thanks so much for your help. That’s great to learn that BBPress simply uses wordpress.com logins to verify who the users are, makes it much easier for the authors as they already have that wordpress login setup to generate content.

What I don’t understand now is, the people I want to be able to VIEW AND POST / REPLY / COMMENT in the private forums are people who are already users at veganish.world, they are authors or admins. So … how can they ALSO be users for bbpress private forums? It doesn’t look like it allows me to let them be both an admin of veganish.world content, and a participant or keymaster or moderator or anything else in the bbpress forums …

[@veganishdotworld Participant 2 years, 1 month ago]

Another thought… I don’t know, but perhaps everyone who is already a user at veganish.world, like they are an author, or an admin, etc, already has access to any and all private forums automatically?

That would be OK for me, but is that how it works?

[@robin-w Moderator 2 years, 1 month ago]

there are wordpress roles – administrator, editor, author etc.
and there are bbpress roles – keymaster, moderator, participant etc.

The two exist side by side

Private forums can only be accessed by people with a bbpress role.

The default role given to wordpress users is set up in

dashboard>settings>forums>role

That way you can decide who sees what.

If you have existing users, you can just allocate them the participant role (typically) in dashboard>users>all users> and edit each user.

[@veganishdotworld Participant 2 years, 1 month ago]

I wish it worked that way, the two of them existing side by side. For me, they exist, one under the other. The BBpress roles are listed the same as the regular wordpress roles, right underneath. If I try to “add” participant as an additional role on top of author or admin, it doesn’t add it, it only CHANGES the role from admin/author to participant. 🙁

It would be so nice if the users page would allow BOTH roles simultaneously. But it doesn’t … is there any way to fix this?

[@veganishdotworld Participant 2 years, 1 month ago]

It’s so odd that bbpress wouldn’t let people who are already an admin or author, editor, etc, on the page participate in the forums, but so far that’s how it’s looking to me. Hopefully I’m missing something that will fix this situation.

[@robin-w Moderator 2 years, 1 month ago]

umm, this is in dashboard>users>all users>edit user?

[@robin-w Moderator 2 years, 1 month ago]

It’s so odd that bbpress wouldn’t let people….

you do need to accept that your site is unique – there is no other WordPress site that is ‘exactly’ the same, you have a combination of php versions, theme, plugins pages, posts and numerous settings that no-one else has.

Therefore, please do not assume that what you are seeing is what everyone sees –

setting wordpress and bbpress roles to both exist is normal, what you are seeing is not.

it could be a theme or plugin issue

Themes

As a test switch to a default theme such as twentytwenty, and see if this fixes.

Plugins

If that doesn’t work, also deactivate all plugins apart from bbpress and see if this fixes. if it does, re-enable one at a time to see which is causing the error.

If you cannot do this to your site (say because it is live) then use the ‘troubleshooting’ features of this plugin to let you test without affecting other users

Health Check & Troubleshooting

Then come back

[@veganishdotworld Participant 2 years, 1 month ago]

Yes, I go to users, from wordpress dashboard, and I see a list of users. After installing bbpress plug in, there are additional types of users (bbpress types like keymaster, participant, etc), listed underneath the standard wordpress user types (author, editor, etc). I can only chose one from the list.

The URL when I’m looking at the edit page for a wordpress user is like this:

https://wordpress.com/people/edit/veganish.world/raquelitadee

[@veganishdotworld Participant 2 years, 1 month ago]

I only just started, and I’ve only installed 2 plugins that I know about, bbpress yeserday, and private groups today (deactivated pg per your instruction). The theme I’m using is Baskerville 2.

Yes, it would be really great if I could choose both roles for one person, like web page admin AND forum participant. Maybe I can completely uninstall bbpress and pg and then reinstall bbpress and see if that puts it back to what you’d consider to be a normal view? Is that what you are suggesting?

[@robin-w Moderator 2 years, 1 month ago]

ahh… I think that’s you wordpress.com access.

You need your site user access

so once logged in as administrator to your site, then in your sites dashboard, go to

dashboard>users>all users>edit user

[@veganishdotworld Participant 2 years, 1 month ago]

Robin, thanks once again for all of these tips.
I’ve been logged in as admin / owner of site and when I go to users, all users, it has tabs at the top that say team, followers, email subscribers, invites.

When I look at a user, it has the radio buttons with several options for roles, the wordpress standard ones, followed by the bbpress ones, and no distinction between the two, they are just in a running list, and you cannot pick more than one.

Oh! I just remembered, there is a little white rectangle in the upper right corner that allows you to choose DEFAULT VIEW (what I’m seeing) or CLASSIC VIEW. I just changed that, and now I’m seeing “Side by Side” columns like what you are describing.

Wow! That’s important.

[@veganishdotworld Participant 2 years, 1 month ago]

Interesting, now I can see that apparently Keymaster was automatically populated for my 2 admin people, and participant was automatically populated for a couple of authors (ones who have submitted content). For 2 authors who have not yet submitted content, nothing was automatically populated.

However, I went in to edit user and added them as participants. When I go back to edit user, it retains that I chose that for that user, it’s shown there, but when I look at “all users” it appears as if nothing has been selected for them yet, under the BBpress role. But perhaps that will start to appear once those authors have submitted a post?

I’m going to experiment with logging in as different usernames to test this and see if it works. I have not uninstalled bbpress yet, as so far I’m thinking maybe it won’t be necessary. Perhaps, hopefully, it was only the issue of needing to switch from Default view to CLASSIC VIEW, under users, to see the proper user options for BBPress.

[@robin-w Moderator 2 years, 1 month ago]

ok, this all sounds like wordpress.com stuff (not a problem, but I don’t use this, so have no experience of what it looks like)

Come back if you are not sorted !

[@robin-w Moderator 2 years, 1 month ago]

ps uninstalling bbpress won’t help 🙂

[@veganishdotworld Participant 2 years, 1 month ago]

Thanks Robin. Oh, I thought this bbpress was specifically for wordpress users to create a forum on their wordpress site? I’m new to wordpress and bbpress. How is that you use bbpress without wordpress?

[@robin-w Moderator 2 years, 1 month ago]

wordpress.com is a specific site to host wordpress sites

but you can have wordpress sites on lots of other hosting platforms as well.

but yes bbpress only works with wordpress.

[@veganishdotworld Participant 2 years, 1 month ago]

Hi Robin,

Regarding my question, if bbpress only works with wordpress, how is that you don’t use wordpress, but you do use bbpress? That was my question there.

Now for another question. I set up a private forum with private topics as a test. The weird thing is, I can’t see the comments after I’ve posted them. It shows me that comments are there, just that the time and date, and if I hit reply, I can write something, although I can’t read what I’m replying to. Then afterward, there is another nested link with the date and time of what I just submitted, and I can’t read that either.

[@robin-w Moderator 2 years, 1 month ago]

on 1, see my response above and https://themeisle.com/blog/wordpress-com-vs-wordpress-org/#:~:text=The%20key%20difference%20between%20WordPress.com%20and%20WordPress.org%20is,start%2C%20less%20freedom%29.%20And%20that%E2%80%99s%20the%20major%20difference.

[@robin-w Moderator 2 years, 1 month ago]

on 2. previous advice applies

it could be a theme or plugin issue

Themes

As a test switch to a default theme such as twentytwenty, and see if this fixes.

Plugins

If that doesn’t work, also deactivate all plugins apart from bbpress and see if this fixes. if it does, re-enable one at a time to see which is causing the error.

If you cannot do this to your site (say because it is live) then use the ‘troubleshooting’ features of this plugin to let you test without affecting other users

Health Check & Troubleshooting

Then come back

[@veganishdotworld Participant 2 years, 1 month ago]

Hmm, so are you implying that you use wordpress.org and self-host, versus using wordpress.com?

I had my site on bluehost, which is considered self-hosted, but just a few days ago, I moved it from being at bluehost with their premium plan that was about $300 per year (I paid about $900 for a 3-year subscription, back in November 2019). Unfortunately, I didn’t get the web site going until March/April 2022, and when I did, I couldn’t get the web site to display excerpts for the archives. I write lengthy blog articles, and it was so frustrating having to scroll all the way through one article just to get to the next! I’m totally new, as so it’s not like I tried everything, not by any means, I simply had no idea of how to find anyone to help me.

So in April 2022, I stopped posting on my new blog as there was no use posting more, as it would just cause my finger to fall off, trying to scroll through the entirety of each post, LOL, so I kept asking for help, how can I get it to show just the titles of the blog posts, not the whole frickin’ article that you have to scroll through, all through this year, asking people I knew, asking people on facebook, etc. Sometimes people said they could help, but they ghosted (got busy with life), and no one ever helped me. Plus, I’m busy with my life, too! 🙂

Finally, in October 2022, someone told me I’d have more options if I hosted directly on wordpress instead of hosting through Bluehost. Plus, at bluehost, I got notices saying the site was down on a weekly basis, and they said that wouldn’t happen if I hosted directly at wordpress. So a few days ago, I switched over to wordpres hosting. I’m paying about $250 per year for their premium business account. I believe that most of the negatives that are listed in your article there, in terms of lack of customization or flexibility, shouldn’t be an issue with a WordPress.com business account, which is what I have.

I’m very excited that the forums option exists because of bbpress. If I can get this going, I’ll make a $500 donation to y’all and will continue to donate for the years in the future. I’m a big believer in supporting developers like yourself who create things like bbpress for the common good. 🙂 It looks like a great option; it’s just not working for me quite yet.

I don’t have ANY PLUG-INS AT ALL installed, other than bbPress, and PG (private groups, which is deactivated). The web site is live … do you think it’s OK if I experiment with switching the theme? Is that going to screw up all my customization? Or could I just switch the theme and if it doesn’t fix the display of the forums, switch it right back?

[@robin-w Moderator 2 years, 1 month ago]

I’m not a bbpress developer, just a guy sat in his kitchen who tries to help others.

what theme are you using?

[@veganishdotworld Participant 2 years, 1 month ago]

oh, okay! 🙂 Are you not the person who developed Private Groups and offered it to the public for free?

Thanks for your help, I’m using Baskerville 2.

If you would be willing to take a look, I could make you a user at my web site so you can see the private forums. They are all just test forums right now.

[@robin-w Moderator 2 years, 1 month ago]

yes private groups is one of mine 🙂 along with bbp style pack and a few others.

contact me via http://www.rewweb.co.uk/contact-me/ and I’ll take a look