In bbPress 2.0, the recent plugin version, that comes packed with the twentyten bbPress theme, I noticed that a role was not being displayed within the topic reply template.
I ended up adapting the core design from twentyten to WooThemes Canvas and felt the forum role was an essential aspect that was missing.
I came up with a quick solution but perhaps you can contribute a more dynamic solution for removing the bbp_ prefix that is included when simply displaying a bbPress Role.
Here is what I came up with:
$user_id = bbp_get_reply_author_id();
$user = new WP_User( $user_id );
if ( !empty( $user->roles ) && is_array( $user->roles ) ) {
foreach ( $user->roles as $role )
if ( $role == bbp_moderator ) {
echo 'Moderator';
} elseif ( $role == bbp_participant ) {
echo 'Participant';
} else {
echo $role;
}
}
?>