Support » Requests and Feedback » blog and forum integration

  • Hi,
    To enhance the community feel of the site, it would be nice to have blog comments fed into a forum (like phpbb, etc). People could reply to comments from the blog, or from the forum.
    A blog with comments isnt enough to build a community as each comment is so separated from each other. Although there are “most recent comment” hacks, it doesnt match browsing and posting on a forum, with all its features.
    Maybe it is a bit like some geeklog sites I have seen? Or a site like http://www.macrumors.com/
    Is this possible with wordpress?
    thanks

Viewing 14 replies - 1 through 14 (of 14 total)
  • But.. but… WordPress is not really a community software 😮

    wordpress is a community software but different from forums…

    Thread Starter peter92

    (@peter92)

    i know wordpress is blog software, and not forum software, but i was asking about *integration*.
    for example, i have seen many posts about integrating wordpress with photo gallery’s.
    also, other open source apps like mambo integrate with forums, and other apps like gallery, that i thought wordpress might too.
    instead of building forums into wordpress, i just think it would be cool if comments could be integrated into an existing forum app out there.

    u want comments to a blog post auto posted as forum replies in phpBB? WHY?

    yeah i have seen forums auto generating first posts in forums from blogs.
    but that has got nothing to do with the blog. forums need addons and the rss feed. 🙂

    I hacked up phpBB to accept trackbacks as comments, using the phpBB Fetch All modification. It ought to be pretty easy to use that as a starting point to facilitate a variety of integration approaches.

    i was looking at this exact same issue/idea using wp and phpbb but based on workflow and user/reader habits, opted to keep comments inside the wp site, and instead have a great developer who is using phpbb’s topics anywhere to run the most recent forums right to the main screen on wp
    the desired effect is similar – readers of the wp site are at ALL times aware that forums exist (there’s even another box he’s putting up with shortcuts to search forums, register, etc) BUT the comments stay inline on an ongoing basis with each and every article entry – if you start feeding all content to the forums, they’ll become stuffed daily with postings (depending on volume) which are never commented on…
    additionally, the big workflow item for me (the decision maker point) – the forums are in fact coppa compliant (children’s online privacy and protection act) and require two step activation for new accounts (signup with basic info, then confirm via email, then log in) – nobody will take those steps just to comment (possibly) regarding a posting on a WP site that will then wind up buried inside forums…just my opinion….
    the developer i’m workign with had no concerns that he could hack the ‘comments’ to open into phpbb, what turned me off from the idea is exactly what i’ve described above.
    comments on articles are, by their nature, impulsive, reactive, and ephemeral (in composition), versus forums, where many threads have the potential to intensify and so (in phpbb) remain at the top of the forum..

    Thread Starter peter92

    (@peter92)

    hey.
    did anyone check out http://www.macrumors.com/ ? That is what I had in mind when i made this post.
    It is blog style. New items, where you can comment on it. Like wordpress.
    But, you click the comment button, and you get taken to a forum.
    This is a high traffic site, with 73,570 threads, 870,666 posts, and 35,947 73,570 members. This amount of people/posts is hard to put into blog comments. People come for the news and info, but they really stay for the discussions and debate. There are often several pages of posts, with uploaded images, user avatars, a great search engine, and a way for like minded people to discuss other topics.
    On a blog, people comment on specific posts, but without going off topic it is hard for people to discuss an unrelated issue. Forums, allow a community of like minded individuals to discuss various topics.
    Also, for anyone that makes sites, your own content can only come so quick, but the site viewers are happy to create free content all day and spend their waking life posting comments and actually contributing content. Whenever you come to the site, something is new, with many new comments to read. It is a great way to keep people coming back to your site, and allowing them to browse forums/content.
    Sure, you could have a blog, AND a forum on your site, but then there is 2 separate registrations, and 2 separate places to talk, and on the blog comments, no way to upload images, etc.
    On some sites, the focus is on the posts and content, but on other sites, my favourite sites, the comments are more interesting and insightful than the original post. Brilliant people come together and discuss something in a way that really illuminates the topic.

    There’s a point of convergence where blogs and forums can each perform suitably in place of one another for certain applications and/or audiences.

    Blogs are primarily a one-to-many publication. The author(s) make the top-level posts, and everyone else comments.
    Forums are primarily many-to-many, where any (registered) visitor can create new top-level discussions.

    Blogs can work very well for some sets of “community”, and for some kinds of “discussion”; but that’s not the intended use of most blogging packages and the software falls short of facilitating the kind of dynamic conversation you’d find in a forum (witness photomatt’s “mosaic” post, with its 1,000+ replies — it’s very hard to maintain a conversation thread in there).
    Forums can serve well for some sorts of “news updates,” but that’s not their intended use. Forums are geared much more toward collaborative conversation — participation — and are otherwise overkill for one-to-many conversations.

    Perhaps have both comments and discussions? Each post would create a discussion item on the appropriate board (depending on category perhaps), yet each posting would also allow comments.
    Then you can have wheat, and the chaf (so to speak)… the most sucessful sites I’ve seen link just to discussion. Ars Technica and Mac Rumors do it right, yet Slashdot doesn’t seem to strike the right balance.

    i’ve been wrestling with the same thing – actually using wp comments specific to articles (with no site registration for WP on the site, only authors login) and using phpbb for forum support for all areas of inquiry…thinking of adding a little button next to ‘comments’ that says ‘or discuss this’ – for high volume like macrumors, it definitely makes sense, like the way the designs are integrated as well..for others, not so sure. kind of depends on nature of users (e.g. opine versus debate…)

    I’m looking for solutions to this problem as well. Has anyone adapted any forum software to work with WordPress (i.e. same login)?

    I’m trying to do this also. Any ideas? I also posted over here where there is a workaround, but I can’t get it to work.

    http://frenchfragfactory.net/ozh/archives/2004/08/14/integration-of-phpbb2-into-a-site/

    <<
    I’m getting this error

    Fatal error: Cannot redeclare get_userdata() (previously declared in /home/content/m/y/s/mysportsradio/html/wp-includes/functions.php:184) in /home/content/m/y/s/mysportsradio/html/boards/includes/functions.php on line 116

    I think may have something to do with common.php here:
    include_once ($phpbb_root_path . ‘common.’ . $phpEx);
    include_once ($phpbb_root_path . ‘mods/phpbb_fetch_all/common.’ . $phpEx);

    I’m very novice at php so I’m pulling my hair out but want to get this solved. Thanks for your help!
    >>

    Any ideas?
    Thanks,
    Sam
    mysportsradio.com

    Does anyone know a way By solving this folling problem when i was installed with phpBB2 with wordpress:-
    1>When admin will publish some topic it is displaying in the Home page of my (www.saniamirzanews.com/blog)When some one cilck the title of topic it is going to open phpBBe2 forum page but the content is not displaying.showing(The topic or post you requested does not exist)this message.
    2>When i’m going to admin pannel under mange->WPHPBB MANAGE it gives this following messages;-
    Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /homepages/31/d136889364/htdocs/saniamirza/blog/wp-admin/admin-header.php:8) in /homepages/31/d136889364/htdocs/saniamirza/blog/phpBB2/includes/sessions.php on line 329

    Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /homepages/31/d136889364/htdocs/saniamirza/blog/wp-admin/admin-header.php:8) in /homepages/31/d136889364/htdocs/saniamirza/blog/phpBB2/includes/sessions.php on line 330

Viewing 14 replies - 1 through 14 (of 14 total)
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