It was probably about ten years ago, around 2015, when we were transforming and rebuilding the Weixiaoduo platform, that I first came across the forum software Discourse. My first impression at the time was that the UI was too ugly and unattractive. Furthermore, I wasn’t familiar with Docker, and our functional requirements weren’t extensive—just needing to collect user feedback was enough, so we chose WordPress’s native bbPress for the forum.
A decade has passed. Due to the lack of a clear commercialization path within the WordPress ecosystem, bbPress has never received much attention, especially after the block-based transition, which has now made it completely incompatible with block themes and unable to function properly.
I tried many times to revamp the Weixiaoduo forum, but it was plagued with bugs and incompatibility with Gutenberg. By the end of last year, I had no choice but to give up and decided to take a different approach—a new architecture, new software, and a new Wenpai Community.
This is what you can now experience at wpcommunity.com.
Over the past few years, Wenpai has launched numerous sub-projects, and collecting user feedback has become incredibly difficult. Serving advanced user groups and developers requires more sophisticated solutions. I often recall a phrase I once read: “Do you have ten years of experience, or one year of experience repeated ten times?” This reminds me not to forget to keep learning and avoid becoming too complacent.
This forum will officially launch and begin operation next week to facilitate user feedback collection and drive new projects forward.