WordPress MU

Can anyone recommend any alternatives that do the same job as a WPMU + BBpress + Buddypress installation ... some other social networking/forum/blog set up?

It seems to me that apart from the minor bugs that come up, like BP Groupblogs now in 2.9.1 etc, the biggest failing, or omission, of such as set up is that the major components do not share sitewide searches and that there is no real way of setting them to do so.

So of, for example, one wants to search for a single term, one has to perform multiple search across a number of blog, forum and other elements of the site. In other words, you might never find it.

I appreciate one can always rely on Google to find everything eventually ... but that seem to miss the point of having one domain name and everything integrated.

At present, despite all loyalty and appreciation that one might have towards the *press stable ... it is really all disconnected at the back end.

I tried. I poured 100s of hours in. But I am stuck. It just does not work yet ... right now ... whatever. It really is great for standalone blogs but, I am sorry to say, the rest really is just a facade right now.

What is on the cards for v.3 and BBpress as far as knitting the parts together ... will BBpress every be brought in from the cold and fed properly?

Thanks.

Bump ...

There is a site-wide search plugin http://premium.wpmudev.org/project/global-site-search but it is not free. I do not know if it would find stuff from BBPress. I would imagine that if it is stored as a post then this plugin will search it, as it relies on another of their plugins: post indexer plugin.

Thank you, I appreciate that. WPMUDEV are good guys.

But, I really want to raise this issue higher than just 'sticking plaster' level.

Look, let's be honest people ... it is a fundamental failing of the whole *Press stable ... even these pages, Automattic's own sites, are a pretty face on a lash up of bits and pieces at the backend which

don't talk to each other,
don't work with each other,
don't share css, language etc, and
are unsearchable.

Yes, each single element is lovely. We have so much activity on the outside, adding wonderful bells and whistles. But on the inside or back end we are screwed.

If there is no overall integration, there is no point is using it. You may as well nail together bits and pieces from all over the place.

A good solution could be created with Yahoo Boss for integrated search between the automattic press software.

Why don't you pay for the development of a Yahoo Boss Press plugin and donate it to the community?

Don't forget that these are opensource projects offered as is and plenty of people are more than happy with what these products deliver.

I'd be resistant to invest myself in any further patchy lash up ... and, certainly, without knowing where the overall development of the softwares was headed.

Is the intention going to remain as a patchy lash up?

Being "Open Source" is not some kind of magical virtue that defends any software from honest discussion or valid criticism ... and the pointing out of very core and basic faults.

Honest discussion, or valid criticism, is part of the process. What I have written is very fair and accurate, made moreso by the latest and proposed releases breaking many of the few patches.

It is something that should be in the core.

Being "Open Source", and depending on the Open Source development community (which often isn't a community at all), brings along its own problems as well.

The obvious ones being a lack of centralized vision and a lack of liability to one's "clients". The choice to "Open Source" is both a personal one and a business choice as, say, doing any other charity work. It can be a service. It can also be anything from a personal indulgence (narcissism) to negligence (dumping a buggy, broken POS on other people claiming it to be something it is not) ... a theft of others life and time.

A lot of people are very happy and grateful for even a broken system. A lot of people are even happier and more grateful not knowing that the system they use is broken. But that does not mean that a broken system, or maintaining a broken system, is good.

It is not ... it is a theft of others people life and time.

I do not know what Automattic get out of the *Press stable and the community. Obviously something beyond that simple glow of charitable patronage. A lot of reputation, free development, R&D, market analysis and feedback ... stuff which normally costs corporations big money.

And Automattic is a multi-multi-million dollar operation.

If you stand back and look at "the community" as a whole, the problem is everyone is fully engaged in their little corner either enjoying making, using or defending their little bit.

But the fact is, as a whole, it is broken ... or at least incomplete. It is a facade, a lash up on top of a patchy back end that does not work together.

I just do not know if there is any commitment from the core to make it all work together?

If not ... then that is why I ask if there are other platforms worth investing oneself in.

Just to restate the obvious before it is lost in meta-discussion ...

A search window on the front of a website should SEARCH the whole of that website.

The Automattic WPMU + Buddypress + BBpress combo puts a single blog at the front of a portal and MISLEADS users with a search box that only searches that single blog.

That is just plain wrong behavior.

Even on this showcase website ... use the Search window at the top and what to you get? An unintegrated Google search or whatever is roughly integrated but hosted at http://s.wordpress.org.

That tell me the people are aware of this issue ... so it is being addressed and if so when is it being scheduled to be addressed?

The needs of a small blog farm social network are far less than wordpress.org/com.

A lot of people, including the Wordpress folks are satisfied with a solution which uses Google and Yahoo. You can buy the wpmu premium plugin.

If you're unhappy with these solutions you do have the option of doing something about it yourself. It's an open source project and there is a plugin api for wordpress.

Serving searches yourself can put a big cost on hardware. If you're looking to scale it's best to go for Google Site Search/Custom Search or Yahoo Boss. If not those then maybe something using Tokyo Dystopia.

Look at what WPMUDEV say ... One of the things people have been less than fond about as regards WordPress has been it's search functionality.

So it is an issue ... and that plugin does not do the job.

Is it really satisfy? Or is it just that most site users do not know what they are missing and cant see what is behind the facade?

Few projects ever get to that kind of scale where they need to offload to Google, and those that do have corporate backing. And I am trying to string something together for a local non-for-profit.

I have never had an honest answer as to why WPMU search does not search all blogs (... or if it ever will). And, let's face, we know BBpress is a poor starved cousin.

So, back to the original question.

Can anyone recommend any alternatives that do the same job as a WPMU + BBpress + Buddypress installation ... some other INTEGRATED social networking/forum/blog set up?

"That tell me the people are aware of this issue ... so it is being addressed and if so when is it being scheduled to be addressed?"

Actually, no. The devs are not aware because the devs don;t read long threads in the forums.

If you want it address (by actual devs), then please file a trac ticket. At least then you'll get them talking.

http://core.trac.wordpress.org Please tag it multisite, and login with your wp.org credentials.

That's the thing about open source - you CAN contribute. ;)

As to why it's not in there - probably because nobody's thought it it yet as being something "core". Or even if it should be. Yes, the three pieces can be plunked together - but not everyone will.

there's methods to search across all blogs already (sitewide tags is one way), and yes I can agree with you that it's not ideal. But the reason it hasn;t been implemented is probably closer to the reason that 0 until now - WordPress MU has had only *ONE* developer. One. Working in his spare time.

"I have never had an honest answer as to why WPMU search does not search all blogs"

Did you actually contact someone in charge and ask? Or file a trac ticket and ask? Diatribes in the forum are more liekly to just get ignored.

Also, if you did plan on searching across all three pieces, you've got some serious db work to do.

"and, certainly, without knowing where the overall development of the softwares was headed."

If you follow along the development blogs, then you'll know.

As for alternatives - no, I'm unaware of any. You'll just have to hit up google for "open source social network"

It's free, but its cost IS time - time to know what it does and doesn't do. Because it doesn't do what you want out of the box, does not mean it is broken.

I shared a short, similar critique with Matt on the BBPress 'A' team list.

No response. No overview. In generally, across the platform, folk seem understandably stuck into their little corners.

• May be they need a social-psychologist rather than more coders?

If Web 2.0 is about "communication", WPMU is 100 or 1 ,000 people talking to themselves in the hope someone out there is listening.

With Buddypress, at least that starts to become connected, groups of similar interests and "relationships" established.

With the unrealised hope BBpress or phpBB integration, there some the hope of actual "discussion" between parties who also make the rest of their POVs and findings public and referenceable via their blogs.

(Add to the Wiki like easy of interlinking between pages and you would have a useful tool).

But even then finding anything is like trying to pick up the thread of a random conversation "somewhere" in the middle of Times Square.

Yes, I have Googled ... I was asking for the opinion of others who had looked at different Social Networking platforms.

Take a look in your MU install. You'll see lots of files ending in .php. That's the source code to the system. That's the same code I work off.

Open up PHPMyAdmin and point it at your MU database. That's the database with all the structures and fields and everything laid out in front of you.

Be so kind as to contribute a patch or solid ideas for implementing cross-application search or whatever it is that itches you. The whole reason that MU is out there at all is because I wanted multi-blog software for my Linux User Group. b2 was the best of the bunch I tried and it eventually became WordPress and you know the rest of the story.

Scratch that itch.

"the biggest failing, or omission, of such as set up is that the major components do not share sitewide searches"

The biggest fail in my opinion is that it is impossible to translate the bbPress installation. I have a WordPress MU setup, with BuddyPress inside and bbPress inside that. No matter where I put the .mo file for bbPress, it just doesn't work. Having an entirely Dutch site with an English forum seems so lame.

Take it to the bbpress team, they have their own forums.

The talk over there is that BBpress is being turned into a WP plugin (with no word as to what will happen with all the plugins of that plugin ...). Some voicing the idea of forking BBpress as an independent project. My feeling is that it is being sidelined by Automattic except for its minimal form in Buddypress. Let's face it, it has been starved to death and neglected for a long time.

The BBpress, as included in Buddypress, is already a different beast and confusingly so for newcomers.

But this bouncing around between all the different forums is false.

Have a problem with BP forums and they send you to BBpress who sends you to WPMU who sends you back to BP ... It is like the Microsoft support line telling you it is the Dell support's job whilst the Dell support tells you it is MS.

Yes, I know you are not "support" but you get what I mean.

We are all one big happy family under the same benign dictator ... are we not?

That's also getting an overhaul this summer. :)

All in due time.

edit: Never mind. Not worth the trouble. Matt and crew don;t listen anyway.