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 an area
Click New Area at the end of the list. The Create Area dialog asks for a Title and an optional Description. Under Style you choose between Icon, with an icon and a Color, and Image.
A new area starts as a Draft. While an area is a draft, none of its forums reach members, whatever status the forums themselves carry, and the status chip of every forum inside it is locked. That makes a draft area a safe place to build a whole section before anyone sees it.
The status chip of the area switches between Visible and Draft. The same menu holds two shortcuts, Set all forums to visible and Set all forums to draft, which also make the area itself visible or a draft. Use them when you launch or pause a whole section at once.
The arrows at the bottom of an area move it up or down. Its menu holds Edit Area and Delete.
Creating a forum
- Find the area the forum belongs in.
- Click New Forum at the end of that area's forum list.
- In Create Forum, 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 Color make the list scannable.
- The order is yours to set by dragging. You can also drag a forum into a different area.
Each forum row shows how many posts it holds, how many members have access to it directly, and when the last post arrived, or No posts yet. The member count only covers people assigned to the forum itself, not those who reach it through its area or a group, so a low number does not mean an empty room.
Your plan limits how many forums you can have. When you reach the limit, creating or duplicating a forum offers an upgrade instead.
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 your team posts. Members read, react and comment. |
| Discussion | Threads with a title and a long-form editor. Others write answers below, and members vote on the thread. |
| Q&A | Members ask questions, and the asker or an admin marks one comment as the accepted answer. |
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.
You can change the type later under Edit Forum. Discussion threads and Q&A questions work differently enough that they have their own article.
Moderated forums
Moderated is not a type. It is a separate switch under the type picker, described as "Posts need to be approved by a moderator.", and available for every type except Announcement.
Switch it on and posts from members wait for approval before anybody else sees them, which suits an open space where you want a look before anything appears. The author does not see a waiting post in the feed either. Approving sends no message; a rejection reaches the author by email and in the bell, together with your reason. Posts your team writes from the admin area skip the queue and appear at once.
Moderation: requests and reports
Who can see a forum
A forum has no "open to everybody" setting. A member sees a forum only when access reaches them by one of these routes:
- Through its area. Open Edit Area and use the Members and Groups tabs. Everyone granted access there sees every forum in the area, including forums you add later.
- Directly. Under Community, Members, you give a member All forums or Individual forums.
- Through a group. A group can carry community forums like it carries courses.
Edit Forum itself only holds the name, description, icon, color, type and the moderation switch. Access always comes from the area, the member or the group.
A forum that nobody can reach is invisible to every member. When you write into such a forum, the composer warns you: "No member can see this post yet. This forum has no member access. Add members or groups to the forum or its area."
Granting 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.
Admins always see every forum, in any status, so check what a member sees by signing in as one.
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 who has access to it. |
| 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 | Members with access can still read the forum. Nobody can post, comment or answer in it any more. |
Archiving is how you close a chapter without losing it. An archived forum also disappears from the forum picker in the composer.
Forums on request
On request is the one status that works outside the access routes above. Every member sees the forum in their list and clicks Request access. Until you decide, the button reads Request pending, and a rejected member can Request again.
Picking On request opens the On-request forum 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 under Moderation in Forum access.
A member who already has access through the area, a group or a direct assignment gets in without asking. That keeps the request step for the people it is meant for.
Duplicating a forum
Duplicate in the forum menu creates a copy with "Copy" added to its name. It keeps the settings, the type and the status, and copies the posts with their original authors, including the answers of a discussion.
A few things stay behind:
- Comments, accepted answers and boosts are not copied.
- Drafts and scheduled posts are not copied.
- Nobody gets access to the copy automatically. Add the area, members or groups again.
In a moderated forum, the copied posts wait for approval in the moderation queue, just like new posts would.
Deleting
Delete moves a forum to the trash, together with its posts. Deleting an area moves the area and all of its forums there at once.
Nothing is gone right away. For 90 days you can restore a forum or an area from the trash in the settings, and it comes back with its posts. After 90 days in the trash it is deleted permanently, together with its posts, comments, reactions, polls, reports and attachments, and it can no longer be restored.
If a forum has gone quiet but the conversations in it are worth keeping, set it to Archived instead. Members can still read it, and nothing has to be restored later.
A structure that holds up
Start with two or three forums in one area, all visible to everybody who joins. 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.