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Is it off-topic? As a 1st party plugin I considered it on topic, however I see it being closed as a 3rd party plugin question, and there is no question to give an authoritative yes or no on the meta stack.

If the question was about WooCommerce or another 3rd party plugin then yes it would be off topic, but BuddyPress is 1st party like the twentytwenty theme or the gutenberg plugin.

What is our official policy regarding questions about BuddyPress?

Note: This is specifically about the official BuddyPress plugin at https://buddypress.org/, not the extensions/themes/add-ons/other 3rd party code.

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Would it really hurt our scope to make BuddyPress development on-topic?

My own proposal notwithstanding, as Tom J Nowell observes BuddyPress is first-party, BuddyPress development is functionally the same as WordPress development, and WPSE would seem to be a natural home for BuddyPress questions.

The factual answer is that BuddyPress is off-topic. I just question if that is the right thing to have as the correct answer.

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BuddyPress is as off-topic as Jetpack, WooCommerce, or any other non-core supported plugin. I feel that a good rule of thumb is that if you can't make a Trac Ticket regarding a bug or enhancement then it's likely off-topic and better handled through whatever the topics support routes may be.

In any case, what makes BuddyPress any more 1st Party than the other 45 Plugins the wordpressdotorg user account supports? These include Classic Editor, Debug Bar, Health Check & Troubleshooting, etc. If we allow question regarding 1st party plugins we may be opening a can of worms. I personally think we would be better off rehashing a proposal to allow all .org hosted plugins. We shouldn't be choosing favorites.

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    But Buddypress is 1st party, Jetpack is 3rd party, hence the question
    – Tom J Nowell Mod
    Commented Dec 15, 2020 at 9:31
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    It's also an entirely separate project with it's own Trac, forums, ecosystem and expertise. While I do understand it's part of the same WordPress Foundation umbrella; I don't see is how it avoids any of the same pitfalls other 3rd party plugin questions run into. In any case, If we were to decide BuddyPress is on topic then that would also make BBPress on topic. IMO a better solution overall is to rethink our Help/Guidelines to be less general support/wp core and more overall development (with plugin inclusion) and garner expertise support from the overall community via call to actions.
    – Howdy_McGee Mod
    Commented Dec 15, 2020 at 13:04
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    The same could be said of Gutenberg, but it's considered a 1st party .org project, and I agree, the BBPress plugin would be on topic too if we used that reasoning
    – Tom J Nowell Mod
    Commented Dec 16, 2020 at 0:29
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    Gutenberg is also part of WordPress Core where BuddyPress and BBPress are not. If Gutenberg was not in Core and still in development to be considered merging I think it would be off-topic. BuddyPress development is not WordPress Development though it may be developed in WordPress. I have no problem with including BBPress and BuddyPress on-topic but we need clear definitions of where the line is drawn (i.e. WordPress and WordPress 1st party) and we need a consensus that this is the direction to go. It might be beneficial to propose an outline as an answer so we may update the Help Section.
    – Howdy_McGee Mod
    Commented Dec 16, 2020 at 0:34

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