I’ve googled and browsed through the forums and finally decided just to ask the experts: Is bbPress right for me?

I’m running a WordPress site and want to start a forum. Simplicity and clean design are important to me. I dislike most of the forum offerings because it seems like you are looking at a database more than a conversation, if you know what I mean.

Here are a few things I’m looking for:

1) Works great on iOS devices.
2) Clean, non-category-oriented design. (e.g. maybe looks like Vanilla?).
3) Has a plug-in that not only shows the title of the recent post but shows a bit of the text. Again, a focus on the conversation, not the database.
4) Not buggy, not a spam magnet.
5) Easy to use for non-techie readers.

For some reason #3 seem to be a difficult hurdle for most forums. Instead they like to show the category, the post title, the author, the time–everything but teasing the reader with what is actually being said!

I did see a bbPress demo somewhere–here, I thought but I can’t find it now–that had a nice-looking theme. It was called (O)x or something like that. The “Theme” section seems to be down these past few days, maybe it was there.

–Darin

[@darinb Participant 12 years, 3 months ago]

Yikes, I forgot to list one of the most important features I need.

6) Integrated comments between the forum and the comment field of posts.

–Darin

[@darinb Participant 12 years, 3 months ago]

Anyone?

–Darin

[@mercime Moderator 12 years, 3 months ago]

> Yikes, I forgot to list one of the most important features I need. 6)
> Integrated comments between the forum and the comment field of posts.

You mean WP Post comments integrated with bbPress forums? I hope that’s not a deal breaker because as far as I know, either someone has still to create a plugin that can do that and release it OR you have to code it OR you have to hire a developer to make the plugin for you.

re #1 – bbPress is responsive but needs some more tweaking https://bbpress.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/1933

re #2 – like the left or right column at http://testbp.org/discussion/

re #3 – hmm, haven’t seen a plugin like that, but it could be done

re #4 – Nothing is perfect in this world. bbPress works all right out of the box. So unless you have a private community, then just like many forum scripts out there, you’d need some anti-spam plugins or better yet, an active community which tags spams so admin/keymaster or moderators can delete such posts and/or members

re #5 – yes, easy to use