This document describes how to set up a forum for a Site - step-by-step.
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Table of Contents
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Introduction
Every Site on Wikidot can contain an autonomous, fully-featured forum. The forum is also used to add such features to the Site as page comments and page discussions. Forum can be also used to produce news feeds (RSS) and build the whole news infrastructure.
But the forum is not enabled by default. Below there are steps required to set the forum up and possibly enable per page discussion.
Before you read this howto you can look at Site Structure document to learn a bit about forums.
Setting a forum
Step 1. - go to the Site Manager
Go to the Site Manager (by default available at the page admin:manage). There should be a link on the side bar of your pages.
Click on Forum & discussion » Settings.
You must have an administrator role within the Site to be able to do this.
Step 2. - activate the forum
If your forum is not yet activated, click on activate forum now.
Step 3. - nesting level
Decide if you want to have a linear discussion or threaded/nested discussion structure for your forum. Read more at the Site Structure document. Save options if you change the default settings.
Step 4. - set up the structure
Before a forum can be used you must define categories the threads/topics would fall into.
Within the Site Manager click on Forum & discussion » Structure. There should be a group called Hidden that will contain deleted threads and per-page discussions. But this is not enough.
Look at Wikidot Community Forum to have an idea what the groups and categories are. Groups are top-level containers for categories and categories are containers for threads.
Suppose you want to create one group to hold 2 categories: General discussion and Help requests.
- Within Forum & discussion » Structure click on add a new group.
- Enter e.g. "Forum discussion" as the name and "General forum discussion related to site «your-site-name»". Click save within the dialog window.
- In the new group box click on add category. A dialog will appear. Enter "General discussion" as a name and something (or nothing) as a description. Click save within the dialog window.
- Add another category called "Help requests" the same way.
- You can move groups/categories up/down by clicking links move up and move down.
- You can also delete empty groups and categories.
- If you have finished, click save at the bottom.
For individual categories there can be separate nesting level settings. Read more about it here.
Now your forum is almost ready.
Step 5. - set permissions
By default only Members of your Site are allowed to post and start threads.
If this is not what you want, you can extend permissions to all Wikidot Users (with valid Wikidot.com accounts).
You can also allow everyone (including Anonymous Users without Wikidot.com accounts) to use the forum. Use this with caution.
If you want Users to modify/edit posts, check/uncheck proper options. But rather leave this option to the authors of the posts so every Users is allowed to edit only his/her own posts.
Forum categories can have separate permissions or inherit the default settings.
So:
- Check/uncheck permissions for all forum categories or rather configure the default permissions that forum categories will use
- Save changes
Step 6. - make links to the forum
All the forum pages are now created but you should link to the forum from your pages.
Simply include links to forum:start and forum:recent-posts somewhere, e.g. copy this code:
+ Forum
* [[[forum:start | Forum]]]
* [[[forum:recent-posts | Recent posts]]]
to your side bar (located at nav:side by default)
Or if you use top-bar pull-down menu you can insert:
* [[[forum:start | Forum]]]
* [[[forum:start | View categories]]]
* [[[forum:recent-posts | Recent posts]]]
to the top-bar source page which is by default located at nav:top.
And…
CONGRATULATIONS! Now you have a working forum!
Allowing per page discussion
It is quite easy to allow discussion and comments bound to individual pages. There are 2 ways you can do it:
Using a Comments module (recommended)
Simply put the Comments module at the bottom of a page just like it is done on this page. People will be able to add comments directly below the page content.
Linking to the forum
Simply go to Site Manager » Forum & discussion » Per page discussion. If you enable the option for specific categories each of the pages will contain a button discuss at the bottom. No comments will be visible within the page.
Forum Page Structure
If you activate the forum for your wiki, several pages are created automatically. These pages are normal wiki pages and there is nothing miraculous about them. Their functionality is encapsulated by certain modules that should be elucidated below.
The Forum Start Page
displays an overview by category in tabular form.
[[module ForumStart]]
- page name: forum:start
- example: Community Forum
- feeds: new threads, new posts
The Forum Category Page
displays all threads of a certain forum category in tabular form, ordered by date of their respective most recent posts.
[[module ForumCategory]]
- page name: forum:category
- example: General community discussion
- feeds: new threads, new posts in this category
The Forum Thread Page
the view of a single forum thread.
[[module ForumThread]]
- page name: forum:thread
- example: It only took me a day to break it...
- feeds: new posts in this thread
The Forum Recent Posts Page
displays all forum posts ordered chronologically.
[[module RecentPosts]]
- page name: forum:recent-posts
- example: Recent Forum Posts
Comments
Reading the community forums, it seems that it is rather easy, if not paying strict attention, to delete a thread or category and render the forums inoperable.
You can move threads and categories, you can edit them, you can hide them in a "hidden Area" but please be VERY careful when deleting them!. Better still… DON'T :-)
Can you please clarify [[module ForumCategory]] and [[module ForumThread]] usage? For me, specifiying those two modules as shown without parameters, gives error messages “No forum category has been specified.” resp. “Invalid thread.”.
The modules documentation lists modules
* RecentPosts — displays recent forum posts
* Comments — put comments below page content; a cool one!
* MiniRecentThreads — displays recent forum topics
* MiniActiveThreads — displays most active forum topics within some time period
* MiniRecentPosts — displays recent forum posts
but neither lists [[module ForumCategory]] nor [[module ForumThread]].
Any help appreciated. Thank you so much!
These posts are held in a page with the[[module ForumThread]].
the threads are in a page that has the [[module ForumCategory]]
they arn't in the documentation cos you can't do anything with them… but they are crucial to the working of the forum.
If you click the source button (top of the side bar in the middle,) you will see what i mean.
http://community.wikidot.com/howto:forums-fixing-them
I followed the directions and created a forum but when I go to the forum start it is a black page and when I choose to edit it I get a warning saying that I shouldn't if I want the forum to work. Can someone clarify it more on how to get it actually started?
Thanks,
Skunkmastere XXII
black. or Blank ?
I would think you have not set up your forum correctly.
No categories set up
have another read of Step 4. - set up the structure
When I click on your www.prosoc.wikidot.com on list all pages and than on forum categories
- I get only the hidden standards..
BUT NO ONE "OWN" Category.
You should never change the forum start pages itself!
they are only start ( module) commandos for the forum search on your site.. depending on your setup.
Have you setup your "groups" and "categories" in the site manager -?
http://community.wikidot.com/howto:forum-step-by-step -Helmut
Okay, we are making progress, thanks to all who helped.. I have the forum now appearing in the SIDE!! and it seems to work. But I am unable, or don't know how, obviously, to start new threads. I, in fact, want to move the thread I started under Alumni to the new category Thesis students. Well, yeah, yesterday I did figure out how to make a category for thesis students, so now I have two categories… but I can't figure out how to open new threads…
https://greenwriting.wikidot.com/forum/start
advice?
thanks,
LG
Are you talking about
- Threads ( "create a new thread" Button)
or
- Categories (Site manager - Forum & discussion - Structure - add_category Button ( in the group where you wanted…)
I created two categories and one thread inside one of the categories. I went back to edit my original post, and went ahead and did it despite the warnings. Now of course the whole forum is dysfunctional. I'd like to completely de-forumize my site and then start over. But can't find a way to do so. Help? And thanks in advance!
Which site?
http://fr337.wikidot.com
Welcome to the club!!! :-)
you need to have a read of this:-
http://community.wikidot.com/howto:forums-fixing-them
Once you have it working again, move any unwanted Categories and or threads to the HIDDEN bit.
i think you will find all the old stuff will re appear.
Hi,
I'm trying to insert in the home page of my site a link to a category I created in my forum called "Job Announcements", but I cannot do it.
Here's what I've already tried:
[[[forum:job-announcements | jobs]]]
[[[forum:29219 | jobs]]] (it's the number of the category)
[[[forum:c-29219 | jobs]]]
[[[forum:category="29219" | jobs]]]
[[[forum/c-29219/job-announcements | jobs]]]
Well, I'm stuck.
Any suggestion?
Thanks!
You have to use the full name of the category-start pages: i.e.:
From our community forum:
http://community.wikidot.com/forum/c-19/general-community-discussion
or | forum cat19
I've created the forums and they show but I cant submit comments to them they're just pretty bricks
I see your categories created for every group - this is OK so…
( I can only write on your site in the per page discussion "forum category" - no idea why….
I do not understand your question … is it solved now?
Regards
Helmut
Please help me! I need quickly to restore an old deleted post.
I moved it in hidden:deleted. now how can I restore it?
Okay I solved the problem, but please add a section to explain how to restore deleted posts… It isn't too easy especially to newbies…