WordPress MU

If you want to help please read this topic carefully. I decided to choose from these three options. Please don't hesitate to say what you think about it:

1. BBPress - http://bbpress.org/
OK, this one is everyone's favorite. If I remember, it was written by Matt himself so it should be WP compatible. But what about WPMU?

2. Simple Press - http://www.stuff.yellowswordfish.com/simplepress-forum/
Now I must say that I've never heard (read) someone complaining on this plugin. Does it mean that it's good or that very small grop of people are using it? All I know is that it's author did some other really amazing plugins.

3. Boonika Blog Forum
No it's not a plugin. It's my idea for a simple forum. I thought; "Why wouldn't I just create another blog, forum.mysite.com for example, and use it as support forum?". You tell me if (and why) is this a bad idea. All I know is that:
a) I can categorize all topics
b) don't have to worry about new forum versions (upgrades)
c) 'search' option is there like on any other forum
d) 'posts' can act like 'topics' and 'comments' are same as any other forum's comments
e) I could also include (gr)avatars easily
f) easy backup

That's it. Tell me what you think. Thanks.

DISCLAIMER (I had to put it here;)): This post was written by a designer (not a programmer) who sometimes only thinks that he knows what he's talking about. Chances to get a useful advice from him are are 50-50 (sometimes less).

I would normally go with #1, but the current code for bbpress is.. UGH... it waffles back and forth between working and not working.

I think #3 would be quite viable on a smaller site.

Thank you Andrea. If it's not a problem, can you explain why 'on smaller site'?

i'm doing something like #3
I'm going to add #1 when bbpress goes final.

Forums are necessary because you can't possibly cover everything in #3.

@Klarko - Thanks, although I don't understand what exactly do you mean by that. And how do You plan to transfer topics to bbpress latter?

My concern is if there is any technical reason, that I'm not aware of, why this wouldn't work on the long run.

No ...they'll always be separate, so there's nothing to transfer. My support section is just another blog on the system, but I created a special theme for it that relies on search and tags for navigation. There we post our topics and users are free to reply to each.

What I mean is you'll be able to write about and cover general topics in your #3 option. But users won't be able to start new "posts" (or "threads"). Hence the reason for a forum in addition to #3. Or do you not want that ?

Number 3 does sound an interesting proposition.
With a custom theme and allowing registered users to post "posts", it could be a viable option.

By the way, are we talking about a forum in the sense of a sitewide forum for everybody or for individual blogs?

Assuming from the first post you mean a single sitewide but just want to make sure.

We've recently gone over completely to the swordfish one. Having a separate platform for the individual blogs and a different one for the support forums was a bit of a concern for us. Granted folks didn't have to "learn" bbpress but being presented with a forum that worked and looked different from what they were used to may have thrown them.

For #3 on smaller blogs, I signed up users to the support blog so they could post to it as well. Rather than just add comments & questions. Like a community FAQ blog.

Personally, I foudn it unwieldy the more people used it, but that was just me I guess. There's nothing from the technical end of things that I can see preventing it.

You can also modify your theme and add the post form on the theme itself like the Prologue.

What I had in mind is to adjust theme completely to suite forum's needs. It would be visible only for community inside WPMU. That could easily be aranged by using Dsader's (Good bless him - I mean it) More Privacy plugin. Thanks for your comments.

Boonie - what;s your email? I got a designer question. ;)

I've sent you an email. Did You get it?

Where do I place the "simple-forum" folder if I want to install Simple Press Forum?

Does it work right after installation or still need integration?

simple forum works out of the box. I use it inside the plugins folder so users can use it if they want.

beware though that a version 4 is coming our way ;-) and those interested could go sign up as beta testers, as I know it will be a public beta.