WordPress Community Plugins?

I want to make my WordPress blog more community friendly. I don't have enough users yet to install a forum, it'd just be a dead forum, I want to do that afterwards.

Anyone have suggestions? Are there any plugins etc. I should add?

Thanks.

 

http://www.buddypress.org

 

Can BuddyPress be added to my site, without changing my current design at all?

 

Yes, it is a plugin -- I'd also suggest using WPMU if you want to really get into it. BuddyPress is a good fix as well -- You could also try Social Engine??

 

Thanks for all the advice. However I looked around and apparently BuddyPress doesn't work with the Thesis theme. I'll check out the other too though. Thanks.

 

New WordPress 3.0 comes with WPMU core and can work fine with BuddyPress.

 

Yeah, BuddyPress doesn't work with the Thesis theme though as I mentioned.

 

Buddypress doesn't work well with every theme. There is a Buddypress template pack http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/bp-template-pack/ that adds the necessary template changes that you need to run Buddypress on a non-buddypress site.
It requires some editing and even still, it's not full proof that it will be 100%. The better you are with making minor CSS and Template changes, the easier it will be for you.

There is also Mingle

 

It works with every theme, you just need to know some css.