Working with Groups & Forums on the platform
What can you do as a member?
Reply & Discuss: Within existing forums and topics, you can respond directly and share knowledge with other members.
Start a new topic: Do you have a specific question or statement within an existing forum? Scroll down in that forum and easily start a new conversation via the ‘Create new topic’ form.
Create your own Group & Forum: Do you want to manage a specific theme, project, or area of interest? Then you can start a new group (BuddyPress) yourself. In this, you automatically get your own forum at your disposal.
Roles & Permissions for Forums
To keep the platform organized and secure, creating forums is linked to your role on the website:
Participant (Standard member): Cannot create individual main forums via the front end of the website. However, you can easily create a Group (see steps below), which automatically creates a forum for your specific group.
Key Manager / Moderator (Administrator): Only administrators and moderators have the rights via the WordPress back-end to create general main forums directly.
Step-by-step plan: Create a Group & Forum yourself as a member
Go to the Groups page: Navigate to Groups in the main menu.
Click on ‘Create a Group’: At the top of the page, you will find the button to start a new group.
Fill in the details:
Step 1 (Details): Give your group a clear name and a short description.
Step 2 (Settings): Choose whether the group should be Public (visible to everyone), Private (only upon request), or Secret.
Step 3 (Forum): Check the option to link a Forum to the group.
Step 4 (Media): Optionally add a group image and banner.
Done! You can now invite members and immediately post your first forum topic within your group.
Frequently Asked Question: Why can’t members create standalone forums directly?
It is technically possible to allow members to start standalone forums directly via the front end of the site using extra plugins or custom user roles. This was deliberately not chosen due to the following disadvantages:
Uncontrolled growth and chaos: Members quickly create duplicate or overlapping forums (e.g., “Question about WordPress”, “WordPress questions”, “WP Help”), which fragments the community and makes it confusing.
No ownership: No administrator is linked to a standalone forum. With a Group, the creator automatically becomes the Group Administrator, which ensures better management and moderation.
Risk of SPAM: As soon as spambots register an account, they can automatically create hundreds of empty forums containing spam links.
Empty forums: Dozens of standalone forums without topics or replies quickly emerge.
By linking forums to Groups, the community remains structured, creators remain responsible for their own section, and the platform maintains its quality.
