Help Shape BuddyPress Development in 2014

BuddyPress is about to enter development for the 2.0 release and the core team is seeking input from the community on what to prioritize for 2014 development. John James Jacoby posted on the BuddyPress blog to invite all users, developers and interested parties to weigh in on BuddyPress in the 2014 Survey.

Questions in the survey range from how many BuddyPress sites you’ve built to what kind of hosting you opt for, WordPress and BuddyPress versions in use on your sites, and plugins that you’re using with social network. The survey also delves deeper into user opinions on the best features of BuddyPress and how it can be improved.

A Plea For Reliable Spam Protection

One question in the survey asks what features you think should be added to BuddyPress. I found this one to be difficult to answer, given how robust the plugin already is for quickly launching a full-featured social network. BuddyPress already covers all the basics and it’s not easy to think of something that could be added that wouldn’t be better left to the realm of plugins.

If I were to nail it down to the most pressing issue for the vast majority of BuddyPress users, then better spam protection built into the core is at the top of my wishlist. Better core support for combating spam or an officially supported plugin would make a world of difference to BuddyPress community administrators. There are several plugin options available for curbing spam signups, but the effectiveness for most of them is pretty much hit or miss.

In addition to a reliable option for stopping spam users at the door, it would also be nice to be able to display trending or popular content more easily, based on favorites or most-commented activity. This feature would be beneficial for more active BuddyPress communities and would help to increase interaction on the most important activity items. Then again, something like this might be better left to plugin territory.

Everyone has an opinion about BuddyPress. Will you make yours count? It only takes a few minutes to complete the survey. Don’t miss your chance to help shape BuddyPress core development in 2014. Your participation will help this software better serve the many communities it powers across the web. Results will be posted soon to the BuddyPress Development blog, so take the survey now while it’s still active.