Two levels, and that is the whole structure. An area groups forums. A forum holds posts.
Most communities need one area and a handful of forums. Areas start to earn their keep when you run several distinct audiences in the same platform, for example one area per programme.
Creating a forum
- Open Forums and find the area the forum belongs in.
- Click New Forum at the end of that area's forum list.
- Enter a name, choose a type, then click Create.
The forum is created as a Draft, so no member sees it until you switch its status to Visible.
A name is all a forum needs. Everything else shapes how it feels.
- A description tells members what belongs here. Write it, and you will moderate less later.
- An icon and a colour make the list scannable.
- The order is yours to set by dragging.
The four forum types
This is the setting that matters most, and it is easy to miss.
| Type | What it does |
|---|---|
| Feed | Short posts from everyone with access. |
| Announcement | Only moderators post. Members read and react. |
| Discussion | Threads and replies. The normal case. |
| Q&A | Members ask questions, and one answer can be marked as accepted. |
An announcement forum is the right home for news and rules, precisely because members cannot bury it under their own posts. A Q&A forum suits a support space where the accepted answer matters more than the conversation around it.
Moderated is not a type. It is a separate switch under the type picker, available for every type except Announcement. Switch it on and posts wait for approval before anybody else sees them, which suits an open space where you want a look before anything appears.
Posts waiting in a moderated forum land in the moderation queue.
Moderation: requests and reports
Who can see a forum
Each forum carries its own audience. Open it and you decide whether it is open to everyone with community access, or restricted to certain groups or members.
There is a third shape, and it sits in the status rather than the audience. A forum set to On request is visible to every member, and each of them asks for entry. The next section covers it.
Restricting by group is almost always the right call. Then a purchase, an import or a group change opens the forum without anybody touching the forum itself.
Forum status
Every forum in the list carries a status chip. Click it to switch.
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Visible | The forum is live for everybody in its audience. |
| Draft | Members do not see it. The state to build a forum in. |
| On request | Every member sees the forum and asks for entry. |
| Archived | Its audience can still read the forum, and nobody can post in it any more. |
Picking On request opens its own settings. The display text for members explains why they have to ask, and justification is required decides whether they must write a reason. The requests land in the Forum access tab of moderation. A member who is already in the forum's audience gets in without asking.
Areas
An area is a container with its own name, image and access. Members see the areas they can reach, and each area has its own feed of what is happening inside it.
Use areas when two groups of members should barely notice each other: separate cohorts, separate languages, separate products. Use forums when everybody is in one room and you just want topics.
Duplicating and reordering
A forum can be duplicated, which saves rebuilding the same settings for a second cohort. Drag to reorder; the order members see is the order you set here.
Deleting
Deleting a forum takes its posts with it. If a forum has gone quiet but the conversations in it are worth keeping, set it to Archived instead of deleting it.
Deleting is permanent. Archive the forum instead if you want to keep the posts.
A structure that holds up
Start with two or three forums, all visible to everybody. Add a restricted forum when you actually sell something that needs one. Split into areas only when one list of forums no longer makes sense to a new member.
Structure is easy to add and painful to take away, because members have already learned where things live.