wp-symposium-pro

Been in the biz of social networking community for over 30 years. WPS is by far the most customizable. It can be a bit challenging, but over all it is easy. I have created over 30 sites, and each one is unique. Customer service is excellent.

Had numerous issues when installing this app and ultimately ended up going with another plug-in to get the functionality I was looking for. However, that’s not where my problems began with this plug-in. Even after the plug-in failed to work, I did not request a refund as I took responsibility for not doing enough research before committing to their annual subscription (because the only other option was a lifetime purchase). So I ate the costs and moved on. The following year, I see a charge for this plug-in on my PayPal account. Immediately, I reach out to support and kindly explain that I would like to cancel the subscription and requested a refund. I’ve never encountered a business owner how refused a refund when it’s requested within hours of the renewal. Obviously, if we were months into the subscription period, it would be a different story. Despite emailing them the moment that the renewal was charged, they never responded. Simply cancelled my subscription (I only know this because I was notified by PayPal) and never issued a refund or even an explanation as to why they wouldn’t refund me. Since then, I have tried reaching out 5 different times as well as once through PayPal. Again, they had time to respond to the dispute on PayPal, but not to any of my emails. Not only is it extremely unprofessional to just completely disregard customer’s emails like that, I still cannot believe they are refusing to refund me for an annual subscription that I don’t even have access to. At the very least, if they refuse to refund the year subscription, I should have access until the end of the 1-year period. Complete scam artists. Do not care about you as a customer, just want to collect that check. Zero customer service and a poorly made plug-in.

Main issue I found was after creating a forum the page generated did not match the “page” as generated for the menu item. When I added the menu item the forum page link was broken – it led to url.com/wps-forums/name-of-forum. In reality the forum URL was simply “name-of-forum” (without “wps-forums”). That simply shouldn’t happen. I don’t want to critique to UI and settings panel which is not easy to figure out but this plugin looks like it needs an update and some reworking of the functionality. I will go back to BuddyPress / bbPress for now.

I have tried for days to get access to the website wp symposium pro and keep getting kicked off/redirected . This has been going on for days and I need to access the site to get the pro shortcodes that I need to have a social site. I am not able to gain access to make contact either, I am not able to access anything on the pro site which has all the things I will need to make it work like the demo shows. The codes that were available were great but without the pro codes it’s not worth it.

WP Symposium is a great idea with a host of great features. And once you get into the admin side of the fence, the plugin is incredibly easy to use for even the most technically challenged of people. With that said, the execution of that idea is where you’ll find flaws. For example, when uploaded, images are displayed as thumbnails opposed to full-sized images. Although support for GIF files is advertised, they are displayed as still images when uploaded. No animation or movement. In addition, videos open and play in a separate tab opposed to directly on the user’s profile or group page. Link previews are sometimey. Sometimes they work. Sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they just display random error. etc. What may have been small nuances a few years ago are a big deal in an era where visual content is so critical to user engagement. I discussed these concerns with the creator, who revealed that there were no plans of addressing them in future updates any time soon. In essence, basic WordPress features have been scaled back in the WP Symposium. I imagine some of these limitations were enforced with resource management in mind, but it’s very frustrating when your hosting platform is equipped to accommodate much more. Unfortunately, WP Symposium, while very useful, comes off as an outdated application that is more suited for the MySpace days than today’s visually stunning social web. As such, I’m currently considering making the switch to BuddyPress in hopes of finding something with more media-friendly flexibility. After a year of building everything around WP Symposium, I can’t say I’m looking forward to it.

The guys at WPS provide extremely good support and the positive reviews here can be taken as genuine FACT. Although familiar with Wordpress, my lack of coding/CSS knowledge has not been an issue with this plugin & Pro Extensions as the ‘tweaks’ I needed were provided promptly and courteously by the support team. This is by far the best WP Forum alternative and for those worried about continuity and/or compatibility – fear not! The support is top-notch and I can wholeheartedly recommend both the Core (Free) Plugin and the Pro (Paid) Extensions, which provide an extensive amount of extendability.