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Group-Blogs vs BuddyPress Forums??

Hi there I’m in the process of revamping the online community I run and I’m looking for some feedback.

It’s a small niche topic and demographic.

The main goals are to

Help people within our target group connect for the purposes of support and friendship.

Allow members to share relevant info and resources.

I don’t really want to see lots of personal blogs happening because I think that can be done better elsewhere. More importantly it may be counterproductive with regard to small community building.

I think groups are going to be natural outgrowth of this project but I am not sure how to best proceed.

Should I be encouraging group discussion via Forums or Small group blogs using something along the lines of the BB-groupblogs plugin and let’s say the P2 theme?

What are others doing and what (IYO) might be the pros and cons of each method? Oh! Or is there another option I have missed?

Thanks!

PS: I hope the is a relevent question to post.

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 0:20:51
  • Avi
    • Site Builder, Child of Zeus

    Hi thanks for getting back to me.

    Well in all honesty I dont care one way or the other.

    That being said the following is important.

    – easy for people to get from one group/forum topic to the other

    – create an atmospher that promotes user contribution be it micro or larger.

    -promoting a sense of ownership/belonging (groups) among the users

    – having a simple way to to stay up to date on new content across the entire site.

    know what I mean?

  • James Farmer
    • Founder & Chair (honest)

    My thinking is that it’s always best to start off the smallest you can, so I reckon that a simple BuddyPress group would work for that… really providing at fuirst only one forum / group and then broaching off as members suggest / request at your instigation.

    Build a pub not a nightclub… u walk into a pub withe a few people and its cosy… walk into a club with just a few and it’s empty (and you want to leave!)

  • Avi
    • Site Builder, Child of Zeus

    Hi James thanks for the feedback so then I u suggesting the sticking to group froums vs the groupblog plug-in?

    ANd yeah I like the pub analagy! It works for waht we are doing.

    One thing I curently dont like about bp forums is that I can’t get any added functionality via plugins.

    WIth our old bbpress users could embed video, use bbcodes and sigantures as well as a few other things. Oh can`t forget that after the dark plugin. Man love that thing.

    Wish there was a way to get them going in bp forums as well.

  • Avi
    • Site Builder, Child of Zeus

    Thanks andrew thats what I’m hoping to do but as mentioned elaswehre I’m finding some usibility issues with the Social forum and user feback (from out beta site) is sugesting to me that the forums as they are now are going to be problematic.