In the previous chapter, you learned about a BuddyPress alternative called WP Symposium. This relatively new WordPress extension ships with a native forum module, so the setup time is quick and easy. Simple:Press, in comparison, has been around for several years and is maintained by a group of people. It's also feature-rich, which makes it a great contender for bbPress. Both WPS Forums and Simple:Press forums produce RSS feeds, which you can use to complete the activities outlined in this chapter. For more information about the respective plugins, read on.
Out of the box, WPS Forums comes with a customizable voting mechanism that allows users to vote on forum posts. This functionality would take yet another plugin to re-create in BuddyPress. Additionally, another gamification feature known as Forum Ranks allows you to assign titles like Emperor or Peasant to your users, based on a point system that keeps track of how many posts they...