Run forums on your site

Forums give your community somewhere to talk on your own site: questions about the server, car meet plans, department chat, staff announcements. Members start threads in categories you set up, reply to each other, quote and mention people, and follow threads to hear about new replies.

Each category has its own rules for who can see it, who can start threads and who can reply, so you can run a public help forum next to a private one for a single department.

Before you start#

• Forums is its own module, included in your plan. See Add or remove modules for your community.
• To set them up or moderate them you need to be the owner, or have a role with Moderate the forums turned on. See Create a role and choose what it can do.

Turn on the forums#

1. In the control panel, click Install modules at the bottom of the left sidebar.
2. Find Forums and click Install.
3. Open Forums under Modules in the sidebar, then Categories & settings.
4. Optionally pick a channel in Post new threads to Discord and click Save settings.

The first time you open the forums, you get four categories to start with: Announcements, General, Help and Off topic. Anyone can read them, members can start threads in all but Announcements, and members can reply everywhere. Rename, change or delete them as you like. They aren't added again later.

To put Forums in your site's header, open Navigation and add Forums. See Change your site's menu.

Set up a category#

1. On the Forums page, click Add category, or Edit next to one.
2. Fill in the Name, a one line Description and a Colour.
3. Choose Who can see it, Who can start threads and Who can reply:

4. Click Save category.

Forum moderators can always see, post and reply everywhere. Use the arrows on the Forums page to change the order categories appear in.

To delete a category, open it and click Delete category. If it still has threads, pick a category to move them to first.

What members do#

• Start a thread: open a category and click New thread.
• Reply: write in the box at the bottom of a thread and click Post reply.
• Quote: click Quote under a post to copy it into the reply box.
• Mention: type @ and someone's username or name, like @ava. They get a notification if they can see the thread.
• Follow: members follow threads they start or reply to. Follow on a thread turns it on or off.
• Edit or delete: authors can change or delete their own post for an hour after posting. The first post of a thread can only be deleted by its author while nobody has replied.
• Report: click Report under someone else's post to send it to the moderators.

Threads and categories with posts someone hasn't read yet are marked New. Signed-in members also see the latest active threads on their dashboard.

Members choose how they hear about replies and mentions under their notification settings. See Choose what members are notified about.

Moderate threads#

Moderation happens on the site itself. Open a thread and use the Moderate box on the right:

• Pin keeps the thread at the top of its category.
• Lock stops new replies. Moderators can still reply.
• Move to puts the thread in another category.

Moderators also see Delete under every post. Deleting the first post deletes the whole thread. Pinning, locking, moving and deleting are all written to the audit log.

Deal with reports#

1. Open Forums, then the Reports tab.
2. For each report, click Dismiss to keep the post, or Delete post to remove it. If the reported post is the first one, the button says Delete thread.

Every open report on the same post is closed together. Dealt with lists the reports already handled.

Discord#

When a channel is picked in Post new threads to Discord, each new thread is posted there with its title, the start of the first post and a link. Threads in categories that only some members can see are never posted.

Moving from LonexCommunity#

If your old site used the LonexCommunity forums, the site importer can bring the categories, threads and replies across. Categories that were limited to site roles are set to Forum moderators only, so pick departments and roles for them afterwards. See Move your site from LonexCommunity.

Something not working?#

Members get a 404 on the forums. The Forums module isn't installed. Install it from Install modules in the control panel.

"You can't start threads here." The category's Who can start threads doesn't include them. Check the departments and roles ticked on the category.

"This thread is locked." A moderator locked it. Unlock it from the Moderate box.

"Posts can only be changed by their author, for an hour after posting." The hour has passed. A moderator can still delete the post.

Saving a category says "Tick at least one department or role." You chose Chosen departments and roles but didn't tick any.