Navigate to the Control Panel > Communications Tab > Website Modules > Discussion Forums.
Click Add Forum.
General Info
- Title and Description - Specify the forum's name and its purpose (up to 500 chars.) Be as descriptive as possible so members know which forums to use for their questions and discussion.
- Category - Specify the category in which this forum should appear. In Edit mode, this option allows you to move a forum to a different category.
- Status - Choose Active when you're creating a new forum. For other statuses you might choose when editing a forum, see Understanding Forum Statuses.
- Membership and Visibility - See Understanding Forum Visibility and Membership for help choosing the suitable membership basis and visibility setting for your forum.
Posting Messages
- Who Can Post - Select All Forum Members to allow anyone who's a forum member to start threads and reply to messages. Select Moderator Only to block regular forum members from posting; only forum moderators, module coordinators, and full administrators can post messages. The latter option is used for "announcement" forums.
- Allow Editing Posts - Select Yes to allow members to edit their messages or No to block this. Administrators, coordinators, and forum moderators can always edit or delete messages in a forum.
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Posting Method - Select Online (Web Site). Only block posting by email. Select Online (Web Site) and Via Email to allow online or by email posting. This option requires that the forum have an email address, which in turn requires ClubExpress to handle at least one domain name for your club or association.
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If the second option is selected, a new field specifies the forum's email address. You must also select one of the domain names that ClubExpress handles for your club or association. In addition, a special option appears at the bottom of the page to control how messages are threaded together.
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- File Attachments - This option controls whether the forum allows attachments to messages.
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Moderator Approval - Select No to allow any member to post messages that will immediately be visible. Select Yes to require that a moderator approve new messages and replies before they are visible. If the message poster is also a forum moderator, their message will be posted immediately.
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Notify of Reported Messages - Select No if moderators should not receive an email when a message in their forum is reported. In this case, logged-in administrators or moderators will see a message at the top of the list of forums noting one or more messages have been reported. Select Yes to automatically notify moderators via email when a message is reported.
Message Delivery
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Sending Emails -
- If you send messages via email, the forum will distribute every new message and reply to all forum members via email. This is the typical setting for a "listserver" or email-based forum. You can also configure how often digest messages will be sent out during the day for busier forums.
- If messages can only be read online, the forum does not distribute messages via email. They are posted to the forum and can only be read online.
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Forum Mode - This option is only displayed if the forum sends messages out via email. It governs how the system handles replies to forum messages.
- In Discussion Forum Mode, the message looks like it's coming "From" the forum and "To" the member. Replies are sent back to the forum. The sender's email is not listed anywhere in the message.
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In Listserver Mode, the message looks like it's coming "From" the original message sender and "To" the forum (which has then forwarded it to the reader). When this option is selected, an additional choice appears, governing what happens when users click their Reply button:
- Select Forum to have replies sent to the forum.
- Select Original Message Poster to have replies sent to the poster and not to the forum. Users can also click Reply All to send to the forum and poster. This is the model used by Yahoo Groups and traditional listservers.
- Subject Tag - For email-based forums, specify the text that will be pre-pended to the message's Subject text. This text is usually an abbreviated version of the forum name; members will use it to know which forum the message is coming from.
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Subscriptions - Check this option to allow members to subscribe to a thread. This option only applies to members not already receiving each message via email. If the forum is configured to send emails, members will receive the full text of each message posted to a forum. If the forum is not configured to send emails, members will receive a notification only, including a link to jump to the website to view the message online.
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Message Threading - This option only appears if the Posting Method is configured for "Online (Web Site) and Via Email."
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Selecting the Strong option adds a short unique "token" to the message subject. This system can read this token and know which forum and thread the message belongs to. This token guarantees that message threads will be appropriately preserved (assuming that a receiving member has not modified or removed this token. However, some users find it distracting.
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Selecting the Weak option uses internal message headers to attach replies to their parent messages, as described in the email standards. However, some email servers do not correctly set these internal headers, which would otherwise cause this threading option to break. When the message headers are missing or not properly defined, the system will try to attach a message to a thread based on the message's subject.
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Creating any new forum except Moderator Defined or Member Opt-In may take up to 30 minutes before the forum accepts posts. The member list needs to be populated first.