Adding comments from non-registered users into activity stream.

[pavelevap]

There was an old plugin "BP Include Non-member Comments" by @boonebgorges, but it does not work anymore.

​https://wordpress.org/plugins/bp-include-non-member-comments/

I tried to update it, but there is too much new functionality that I would have to duplicate too much code. So, I tried to use comment_post action and adding comments to activity stream, but there are some blocking points:

1) Function bp_activity_post_type_comment() is checking if user is registered: ​https://buddypress.trac.wordpress.org/browser/tags/2.8.1/src/bp-activity/bp-activity-functions.php#L2310

2) Function bp_activity_new_comment() is also checking if user_id is available: ​https://buddypress.trac.wordpress.org/browser/tags/2.8.1/src/bp-activity/bp-activity-functions.php#L2587

When it is be possible to go through both places (for example with the help of some hook), it could be achived easily.

I did not want to hardcode changes, so I used some kind of cache hack to bypass it (adding user with user_id = 9999999 into user cache before BuddyPress will check it):

add_action( 'comment_post', 'custom_include_non_registered_comments_into_stream', 8, 2 );
function custom_include_non_registered_comments_into_stream( $comment_id, $is_approved ) {
  if ( $is_approved == 1 ) {
    $comment = get_comment( $comment_id );
    $user = get_user_by( 'email', $comment->comment_author_email );
    if ( empty ( $user ) ) {
      wp_cache_add( $comment->comment_author_email, 9999999, 'useremail' );
      $user_object = new WP_User();
      $user_object->ID = 9999999;
      wp_cache_add( 9999999, $user_object, 'users' );
    }
  }
}

Everything works now, there are no warnings, but I am not sure if there are any possible consequences? I had to use also filters bp_activity_comment_action, bp_core_gravatar_email, bp_activity_comment_name and bp_activity_comment_user_link to customize display of these comments in activity stream (especially to handle special user_id = 9999999), but hook with possibility of adding comments from non-registered users (empty or zero user_id) would be easier and very helpful for some users. I understand that BuddyPress is network of registered members, but in this case blog comments from non-registered users in activity stream can be also helpful.

Maybe there is another way to achieve, but I did not find it :-(

[tw2113]

Honestly feels like Boone's plugin should be amended, or perhaps deprecated, for the current BP version instead of trying to change BP core for the sake of one plugin with a very low install count.

[boonebgorges]

@pavelevap Thanks for the ticket.

I agree with @tw2113 that my plugin is not so important as to require major changes in BP. That said, the root problem here is not my plugin - it's the fact that BP hardcodes the user_id requirement in a way that's very difficult to circumvent. If a plugin or a site wants to allow anonymous activity items to be created, why shouldn't BP let it? We should centralize our user_id checks so that they occur higher in the stack, or make the requirement filterable, or something like that.