I’m not going to lie, this has been very frustrating and it shouldn’t be. All I want to do is allow people to interact in my forums and reply to topics anonymously! I’m not here to con people into giving me their emails (that wouldn’t lead to sales anyways). Bbpress makes a setting that is titled…”Allow guest users without accounts to create topics and replies” but it does nothing and still ask for email but says “not published” REALLY “that sounds real not scammy.”

My wordpress theme is completely up to date as well as my bbpress that I installed today. Im working with “publisher premium theme” that works directly with bbpress.

I would really like to know why this is an issue and why bbpress has a button (box check) that does nothing that it says it will?

Thank you

[@robin-w Moderator 4 years, 5 months ago]

The box does exactly what it says it does, it allows ‘GUESTS’ to publish, it says nothing about allowing anonymous posting.

A guest to my house is someone I know or want to be able to ID and maybe contact after their visit if I need to – say because they left something or I want to ban becuase they were not nice. Just opening the doors and allowing anyone to wander round my house is not something I want.

That is the logic behind guests.

Now you want anonymous posting, which is fine if you want it, but it’s not how the software out of the box works. Being frustrated by this is not really something you should be, it doesn’t work how you want, but it has to work some way, and it works how most people want.

So chill ! 🙂

Now if you want anonymous posting, and know how to move a file between your pc and your site, then come back and I’ll help you create that.

[@biggersworld Participant 4 years, 5 months ago]

Thanks for the response and don’t worry I’m super chill. I want to be able to have them post anonymously.

[@robin-w Moderator 4 years, 5 months ago]

great 🙂

find
wp-content/plugins/bbpress/templates/default/bbpress/form-anonymous.php

transfer this to your pc and edit

change this from line 27

<p>
			<label for="bbp_anonymous_email"><?php esc_html_e( 'Mail (will not be published) (required):', 'bbpress' ); ?></label><br />
			<input type="text" id="bbp_anonymous_email"   value="<?php bbp_author_email(); ?>" size="40" maxlength="100" name="bbp_anonymous_email" />
		</p>

to

<input type="hidden" id="bbp_anonymous_email" value="anon@anon.com" name="bbp_anonymous_email" />

and save

create a directory on your theme called ‘bbpress’
ie wp-content/themes/%your-theme-name%/bbpress

where %your-theme-name% is the name of your theme

Then transfer the file you saved above and put in in the directory called bbpress that you created above, so you end up with
wp-content/themes/%your-theme-name%/bbpress/form-anonymous.php

bbPress will now use this template instead of the original, and the email address will then not be asked for.