[nadodi]

Hello Everyone:

Trying a fresh install and configuration. Here is what the site would ideally have:

1. WordPress Multisite – network with sub domains for each sub site
2. BuddyPress – enabled on all sub sites, but each should have its own groups of users
3. BadgeOS – with BadgeStack & Community add-ons; enabled on all sub sites, but each should have its own set of levels, achievements, & badges
4. Commons in  Box – with all the plugins; enabled on all sub sites, but each will have its own configuration

After multiple installs, configurations, and uninstalls, am wondering whether it is all all possible to do the above:

1. WordPress Multisite – setup works fine; sub domains is good as well
2. BuddyPress
   1. installed & activated across the network; did not work across all sub sites
   2. uninstalled
   3. installed, did not activate at network level, activated independently at each sub site, works fine on main site & sub site
   4. but the minute Commons in a Box is activated, it all breaks
3. BadgeOS
   1. Same as BuddyPress
   2. installing & activating across the network does not work
   3. installing at the network level and activating at each sub site level works
   4. BadgeStack & Community add-ons do not work even when BadgeOs works at sub site level. Levels, quests, etc., show up only on the main site and not the sub sites
4. Commons in Box
   1. does not work like BuddyPress & BadgeOs in the install & configure process. For one, it has to be installed and activated at the network level. Administration is also only at the network level. Plugins, etc., are also activated at the network level.
   2. When installed & activated at the network level, results in a lot of error messages for plugin enabling, etc.

Is there anyone out there working with BuddyPress + BadgeOS + Commons in  Box in a multisite environment? What kind of configuration works for you?

I will post additional notes here as we continue playing with the installation & configuration in case it is helpful to someone in the future.

[Christian Wach]

Hi @nadodi As you’ve found, there are installation conventions for the plugins you mention (I’ve not used BadgeOS, but it appears to work the same) that won’t allow you to configure a Commons in a Box install the way you want it.

CBOX considers each multisite install to be, in effect, a single community. What you seem to be after is perhaps better described as a “community as a service” situation – it sounds like you want each new site on the multisite install to be an autonomous community, though perhaps linked in some way to the main site.

You could implement this to an extent by considering BuddyPress groups to be your “communities” and using group blog for posts and pages that are independent of the main site. BadgeOS (via BadgeOS Community Add-on) will work with your BuddyPress groups, although you won’t have independent levels and so on.

You could also look into setting up a WordPress multi-network instance using either Networks for WordPress or WP Multi Network. You could create separate networks for each subdomain, where each network uses “subfolders” for its internal sites. Then, in combination with BP Multi Network, you can create multiple CBOX-enabled multisite instances using the same WordPress codebase. You have to remember, however, that there is still one user table shared between all the networks, so your segregation of community membership could be problematic.

My question to you, I suppose, is why you want this particular setup? Is it just the administrative convenience of a single codebase? It sounds to me like you’re actually after independent sites, where each subdomain is – in its own right – either a single WordPress instance or a multisite instance.

[nadodi]

Thanks @haystack for walking through the various options.

Yes, we are looking for a “community as a service” solution (thank you for giving us that terminology :)). Since we are starting with a clean slate, I am trying to install and configure my way through a final decision on whether we should go with a multisite or single site installation option.

The latter (single site install for each community) does give us many advantages such as independent member community, badging, and so on. However, it also has other disadvantages. One example is the group blog. The Buddypress Groupblog plugin only works with the multisite installation. Are there no options to enable group and individual blogs other than switching to a multisite and enabling bp group blog? I guess that is a question that deserves a separate topic thread…

The documentation is good at describing how individual component works. I am trying to get to a decision about the whole from those parts. Hope that explains it.

Many thanks again for the thoughtful response and questions.

[Christian Wach]

You could perhaps spin up a new multisite instance per community? Something like WP-CLI would help you automate that process but it’s not for the faint-hearted. That way you could have group blogs on all your community sites (yes, multisite is the only way to get BP Groupblog working) and still have automation.

Please let us know how you get on – it sounds like a direction that others might be interested in too.

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