Intuitive Buddypress User Verification That is Extensible & a Core Function

[Tafmakura]

I think it's about time buddypress introduces a simple yet extensible "verified" user feature that can be used as an extensible tool by theme developers and plugin authors, while still being very useful to site owners out of the box. This will be even more useful as buddypress takes on more of a user management role in the backend. The idea is to have a feature where an admin can mark some users as verified users in the backend, just that, this will then a add an entry in the user meta for example bp_is_verified which has a yes or no value, new bp boolean function can then be added to test user verification ie bp_is_user_verified( $user_id ) & bp_is_displayed_user_verified() just that!

WHY?
Users and site admins will LOVE this as a new feature but also...
User verification is an increasingly important thing in social networks and is a simple enough feature to add to buddypress core, leaving this to plugins creates multiple replication of this simple feature that are done by different plugins and adding unnecessary database entries and calls, it also makes it difficult for other plugins to share this feature on the same site without creating their own database table and admin interface, However, if this comes with buddypress out of the box, the admin will only need to verify a user once and any plugins or themes that need the verified feature will get data from thgis one entry, also because the verification value will now exist in bp_database, themes and plugins will now support it out of the box without messing with or altering the database, also multiple plugins will now be able to work with one single core verification for things like verified badges, access control or notifications, the admin will also need to verify a user once.

POSSIBLE USES?
User verification badges (THE BIG ONE!!!)
A New layer of control for conditional logic
Access control plugins
Theme display

[Tafmakura]

No additional admin screens are created, it just add an intuitive toggle in the user admin screen

[danbp]

Do you mean building-in this plugin ?
​https://wordpress.org/plugins/buddypress-verified/

[Tafmakura]

Yes but without the badge settings and options as that adds bulk and complexity to bp backend , the badge display and settings can always be a plugin thing or a bp-custom.php addition added by the users that need the front end display. The main idea is to have one core usermeta field, admin toggle and conditional functions that handle verification which users, themes and plugins can build on. Also users who need this critical feature will be one code snippet/codex article away from implementing it out of the box

[r-a-y]

I would say this should stay as plugin territory.

Not every site needs this type of functionality.

[Tafmakura]

(I started using BP recently) One of the biggest frustrations I've had is that bp lends too many of its most basic features to third party plugins that are mostly outdated non commercial one-man plugins. So when the plugin author ditches the plugin the site owner has to migrate to a new plugin, if a new one exists it may not even be compatible with the last so you have to ditch the feature altogether, or get a developer. hashtags are an example of a feature that is on the brink of extinction, I don't know where to find a reliable (even commercial) plugin for some features that have been relegated to nonexistent plugins.

I LOVE BP but it is one of the few plugins that has had me scratching my head trying to find out how to do the most basic things. Most of the BP plugin links I visit are free plugins that are not supported anymore or dead links. Without basic out of the box features (or well supported freemium add on features) like user verification for example buddypress will remain just a core framework for advanced developers to build on by getting gigs to customise buddypress. Big Fortune 500 co's who want a one off custom job will not grow the BP community).

Plugins like woocommerce and EDD on the other hand are truly DIY solutions targeted at site owners, but what's amazing is that they have a complete product out of the box, they also have well supported plugins that add various basic features.

MY POINT?
It's easy to relegate basic features to plugin "territory" till you realise that the only plugin I could find that does this is out of date. Something makes me uncomfortable lending the entire verification sys of my community to a single one-man plugin that was last updated 12 months ago, no alternatives exist that i know of. Since I joined the BP community a few months ago, unanswered support questions like this are common ​http://premium.wpmudev.org/forums/topic/buddypress-verified-whatever-happened-to-it. I think the kind of people who will grow the BP community are guys who can't necessarily afford to pay an arm and a leg to hire one of you guys to develop my custom BP, but instead are willing to pay $99 a year to get the features I need in a plugin that is supported by the core team and up to date ( I've spent too much time in my bp-custom.php, So I respectfully disagree with you and I say this should be a core feature. I now have too many plugins already related to BP and a lot of them have not been updated, I apologise for the rant.

[boonebgorges]

Plugins like woocommerce and EDD on the other hand are truly DIY solutions targeted at site owners, but what's amazing is that they have a complete product out of the box, they also have well supported plugins that add various basic features.

Plugins like WooCommerce and EDD are supported in part by paid add-ons, and they form the center of fairly large businesses, supported by full-time developers. The BuddyPress core team is comprised 100% of volunteers. There are a few developers with commercial BuddyPress plugin shops, but they are not members of the core team.

I tend to agree with your overall gist that BP should support lots of good stuff out of the box. I disagree that "verified" status is one of the things it should support. It'd be one thing for us to add a bit of an API that would provide a standardized data model (like you suggest with "one core usermeta field"), but any bit of UI that we provide for this kind of niche feature is not likely to be good enough for more than 10% of BP installs.

It's possible that BuddyPress needs a built-in badge system of some sort, which would allow site administrators to create toggle-able labels. Our new Member Types API would be a logical foundation for this. And Verified could, of course, be a badge type that you might introduce.

[Tafmakura]

I think just a basic API and dataset like you say would be fantastic and a basic backend "toggle" for verification. Is a backend similar to my uploaded screenshot too much? I agree that anything more is probably overkill.

The BuddyPress core team is comprised 100% of volunteers, But why? When it doesn't have to? - On a side note - I never understood why Buddypress doesn't form the center of a larger buddypress business that generates revenue and profits for the core team like Woocommerce, EDD and even Wordpress. Your current 100% volunteer based approach has never worked to my knowledge, so why that approach? Open source doesn't mean free right? I'm sure all BP users will have peace of mind knowing that, while still open source, the buddypress product has a full time team and the means and resources to stay at the top of it's game. There are plenty of BP features that I would pay for in a BP extensions store. (Invite Anyone Pro is an example)

[DJPaul]

I don't think we want to implement a feature like this in BuddyPress core at the moment, but thank you for your suggestion and the discussion!