Out With PHPBB And In with WordPress’ bbPress
I am so tired of moderating my forums - PHPBB is just way too prone to spambots - and the help system sucks!! I couldn’t find any of the answers that I had. Plus, everyone uses them and I want something different.
Enter bbPress
From the good folks who have brought us WordPress, comes bbPress. The bbPress forums are designed to be lightweight, efficient and secure - and from what I’ve seen so far, they are! Check out my forums, I am still working on them but everything should be working! I’m still using the default theme (which looks great) but I’ll change that soon…
What’s So Great About bbPress?
Well, a few things! Here’s a short list:
- Powered By The Ones We Love
At it’s core, the development is being handled by the same group of smarty-pants geeks that build WordPress, which we all know is the best blogging app around! - Lightweight Design
PHPBB was easy to install, but it was a pain to moderate and use. BBPress is tiny and extremely powerful and - just like WordPress, you can use plugins to make it even better! - Plugins
That’s right, just like WordPress, there are plugins. Although, you need to take a few more steps to get them installed, it really is pretty easy - and the support community is fantastic too! - Themes
You can customize the look and feel of your forums just as easily as you can with your blog! - Integrable
One of the coolest features is that you can integrate bbPress and WordPress together! You can use the same database (or choose not too) and your user ID’s and roles will be seamlessly integrated. I chose not to do this, because I don’t force my commentators to register. - No Spam
BBPress can be protected by Akismet, the same service that already protects every WordPress install! Take that Spambots!
- RSS Feeds Everywhere
Each user, topic and tag has a feed (just like WordPress) so you can subscribe to anything and everything!
Who Else Uses bbPress
Well, there are actually some very big names using bbPress right this very second!
Final Thoughts
I shouldn’t say “Final” because I’ve only played with the boards for a short time, but I am very impressed so far! I do wish that installing plugins was a little more streamlined but I think I am really spoiled by WordPress’ fantastic system. Also, bbPress is only at version 0.8.1, and it is awesome! There is always room for improvement, and I know that the Automattic guys won’t disappoint!
Also, I have installed the MyBlogLog plugin so anyone who registers with their blogs URL will automatically have their avatar displayed! Sadly, if you registered on the old boards, you have to register again… Sorry. bbPress doesn’t import sucky code 
What Are You Waiting For?!?!
Head over the my boards and register - I will continue giving out free linkbacks to the top posters each week!
MMMMM... Related Posts
22 Comments
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Oh no…have to sign up again. I guess you could not retain the old comments. Should have send out an email or something. We need to get that forum going.
Yeah, I thought about reposting all of the old posts (even from all of the other users), but decided against it!
Tell your friends, lets get this party started!
Excellent choice. I played around with bbpress just to see what it was like and liked it… very lightweight and customizable.
Personally I think vBulletin is one of the best, you have to pay for it, but its only a small amount, worth it IMO, though, I suppose that depends on how busy the forum gets…
At first, I wasn’t sure about bbPress - It’s pretty different then your standard forum, but I really like it now. I like that you can tag posts, which is different then actually having categories - which you can still use, but I think using tags is the better way to go!
Tags are great, maybe better. Kind of like G-mail vs. folders for Outlook and easier to search on.
What are you using to allow editing of comments??? I MUST have that!!!
Do you mean in the comments? That is the WP AJAX Edit Comments plugin. It’s great - the only issue is that, after you edit a comments, it tags the links as NOFOLLOW which I have disabled!
Also, I have created a page of all of the plugins used at Samanathon.com so you can check out what I’m running on the blog!
Ha ha. I had to sign up again. We need to get that forum moving. Hey folks, take 2 minutes to go sign up.
You can ask your questions there, and have a longer conversation. Easier to manage, etc.
Looks like we both have the same shit color theme
Yeah, as soon as I get some time here, I’ll integrate the boards into this theme! I’ll have them reference the same header, footer and CSS.
Actually, I thought that the default theme is pretty nice!
I also want to get the pretty permalinks running but I’m having some issues…
I was going to spend the time to adjust this but it seems the forums are not used much so It’d be a waste of time
That’s the problem I was having when I was running PHPBB, but I am going to put in a real effort into promoting the forums - hopefully they’ll take off!
How did you set this up as a sub-domain to your blog domain? http://samanathon.com/boards
I know. I will ask on the forum.
Thanks
FYI, this isn’t a sub domain (that would be boards.samanathon.com).
I wrote up some easy directions for you on the forums.
You are the best. I need to set up a forum for a client. Thanks.
have you tried Vanilla?
http://www.getvanilla.com/
Vanilla does look pretty good!
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Скоро новый год, поэтому надо уже сейчас думать, что можно подарить самым близким!
У кого какие идеи?
Whoa baby. Need a translation please!
hello, i’m lizzy!