why use forum plugins?

[ilhouse41]

Disclosure: I am new to this and don’t have much knowledge about any type of blog, forum or social media as I have never used them. I’m building a WordPress site hosted at Godaddy. So…
I have installed the bbPress plugin and it seems to work well. My question is why is it better to use a forum plugin rather than use WordPress with all users assigned the “Author” privilege? How do they then differ?
Although bbPress seems to work well I am having some issues in that the majority of the admin settings only work for the WordPress blog and ignore the bbPress forum content. Example: When I look at All Users in the admin interface, it has a column named Posts, which shows 0 posts for all users despite that all current users have posted topics in the forums. It seems to look for “posts” as opposed to “topics”. Same with the “Featured Content” functionality in the “Customize” settings.
Users in the blog part of the site when posting get a media button which allows use of the media library and the “upload” function. The bbPress user when creating a topic can add media, but needs to know the “url” of the media. Nobody I know will be able to add media on my site using a “url”, and I suspect that would be true for many potential users.
Why is it undesirable to simply use WordPress and give all registered users the same access so all can write a post (topic) and or comment (reply). I must be missing something here, because there must be a compelling reason to use bbPress instead of configuring WordPress to allow anyone to write a Post (vs Topic) that any other user could Comment (vs Reply) on or to. Are the terms post and topic not both referring to the exact same type of user interaction within their respective roles?
Again, I have no experience or knowledge beyond what I’ve read, but everything I’ve read about the difference between a blog and forum indicates the only difference is a blog is written by 1 (or a few people) within a limited topic range while a forum generally allows any registered user to write (post vs topic) or respond to somebody else’s input (comment vs reply). Very confusing for me.

[ksthree]

Does bbPress not have it’s own section in your Dashboard interface?

A blog is essentially a “news” website. The news can be anything from actual news to what your cat ate for breakfast. That’s up to you.

Letting everyone be an author opens up a host of possible problems with people (and spambots) posting junk on your site, which will result in a mass exodus of users.

A forum is a more controlled environment. Someone posts a query, people comment and discuss. Moderators can remove posts and even black list users who are abusing the service. Result, less of an exodus when things go down.

I hope I helped you a bit.

[ilhouse41]

Thank you for the reply ksthree. I don’t mean to sound stupid, but why would problems with people (and spambots) posting junk on my site be different with a forum? Is there something about a forum that makes it inherently more secure than a blog?

Maybe I’m not understanding the differences between the capabilities of an “author” on a WordPress blog and a “participant” on a forum. When I look at the bbPress and WordPress documentation on the respective user roles and capabilities they seem to be very similar. I’m unclear as to how the user experience is different between these roles and why one would be more susceptible to people posting junk and spambots. Any clarity provided will be greatly appreciated.

[ksthree]

Well for starters a fprum is divided into categories. So users can view topics within the category of their choosing. A blog is a bot more tricky in that aspect.

Spambots are applications that run on computers and servers that target websites like this one and post all sorts of garbage like penos enlargement and timeshare and make money working from home. Almost all of this is of the nature of scams.

Once your website is flooded with all this negative information you will be guaranteed a near total loss of visitors.

When visitors view a blog they expect a professional and controlled content. A forum allows you to have moderators dedicated to subforums or categories. It’s more structured for this sort of aspect.

I’ve been in the websote game since 2004 and I can tell you from experience, do it right the first time if you want a successful site. Taking short cuts will result in failure.

I would suggest signing up to various forums and seeing what they are about and how the structure works. You don’t need to post, just look around.

[ksthree]

Another key difference is that when someone comments on a blog, it keeps it position dated by the date of the original post. A forum on the other hand moves topocs to the top dated by the date of the most recent reply.