{"id":30,"date":"2012-07-31T13:00:10","date_gmt":"2012-07-31T11:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wprealm.com\/?p=30"},"modified":"2019-01-05T19:44:07","modified_gmt":"2019-01-05T18:44:07","slug":"its-time-to-stop-kicking-the-buddypress-puppy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wprealm.local\/its-time-to-stop-kicking-the-buddypress-puppy\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s Time to Stop Kicking the BuddyPress Puppy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If I had a \u00a3 for every time someone complained at BuddyPress<\/a> or moaned about this or that shortcoming, I’d probably be quite rich and typing this from a desert island. To me, it sometimes feels as if BuddyPress were a poor puppy, tossed out into the world and kicked as an easy target. In the words of Chris Crocker<\/a>: “Leave BuddyPress alone!”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an attempt to redress this imbalance, I am going to roll out a few of the old chestnuts levied at BuddyPress and try to prevent the puppy kicking with some counter points. I will state from the outset that this is not meant as a deep analysis, but rather just my responses to the nay sayers. I might be a member of the BuddyPress-pompom-cheerleading-fan-club-squad and don’t hide it, but keep in mind that BuddyPress pays most of my bills so it kind of deserves my defence, to some degree. That said, I am certainly not blind to where it needs a little nudge to get better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

“It doesn’t scale”<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

She swallowed the cow to catch the goat,
\nShe swallowed the goat to catch the dog,
\nShe swallowed the dog to catch the cat,
\nShe swallowed the cat to catch the bird,
\nShe swallowed the bird to catch the spider,””
\n– There was an old lady <\/a><\/cite><\/p>There was an old lady <\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Scalability it is not a simple, linear issue. There are many factors that need to be considered and BuddyPress itself is but one. I’ll gladly state for the record that I am not a statistics junkie and have not got any massive figures to throw out there. But lets get a bit of sense to that statement; how your site scales cannot be the issue of a single plugin<\/strong> and when it comes down to it, BuddyPress is exactly that, a WordPress plugin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A high membership number for instance may also not tell the full story with non active users and many communities don’t even publish their figures. However, BuddyPress does run some heavy sites such as Enterprise Nation<\/a> (64 000 members) and My Telegraph<\/a> (128 579 members) and there have been recent tickets focusing on scalability and performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this point I think it’s worth to give BuddyPress a\u00a0 “get out of jail card”. One of the biggest issues with BuddyPress and WordPress can come not from core itself but from the theme or plugins you are running on top of them. Don’t always look to blame the core first, stop to think about all the functionality you have piled high on top of that before aiming and shooting. You may also have to look at your WordPress hosting<\/a> solution which is crucial to your site’s performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Privacy sucks”<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I will give the nay sayers this but I will also put a cushion up around the puppies’ behinds as you line up your boot. With 1.6 there is a new feature called profile privacy and it is so important that it simply can’t (as far as I can see) be the only step; it’s step one of a move to get more privacy into BuddyPress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I do have a confession to make of once upon a time giving a swift sneaky kick to BuddyPress over spam protection.  I know only too well of the frustration, despair and bashing my head on the desk that finding a working spam solution for BuddyPress can create. You could perhaps argue that core should have some solution rolled in<\/strong> but as I’ve said privacy and spam solutions are very much at the early stages with BuddyPress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The sites all look the same”<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

You’re not even trying are you?  Those are 2 year old arguments and you’re not bothering to look at the rainbow of BuddyPress sites out there right now<\/strong>. Never one to not bring on a little photo montage of amazing BuddyPress sites\u2026 you asked for it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sites featured in picture:<\/p>\n\n\n\n