With the Forum tool, you can create a space for open discussion for your community. Participants can comment and reply and like or dislike others’ comments. You can facilitate open discussion, create Forum topics for people to discuss, or even give your participants the power to create their own topics.
Adding the Forum Tool
To add a Forum to your project:
Go to your project page and select Add a tool.
From the Tools list, select Forums; you'll find it under the All or Open environment tabs.
Add a title for your Forum, automatically creating a Permalink, and then select Create.
Use the text editor in the Details tab to enter a Forum topic description or change your forum topic title. You can use the description field to introduce your Forum topic and include any rich media, such as videos, links, or images.
Save your Forum when you're finished.
You can change the tool name by selecting the pen icon next to the tool. You can also Edit the Details and Settings or Preview your Forum topic.
Select Add a topic and follow the above steps to create additional Forum spaces.
All Forum topics will be in Draft until you use the drop-down to Publish them. After publishing, you will have the option to Unpublish or Archive it.
Once you've published the Forum topic and your project is published, your participants can engage in open discussion. Remember the importance of closing the loop when your consultation ends – it's best practice to acknowledge the importance of Forum discussions to the outcome of your project.
Forum Settings
This is what you can change in your Forum's Settings tab:
Allow unverified participation: enable this setting to allow unregistered participants to engage with an email and screen name.
Restrict forum creation to administrators: disable this setting to allow participants to create forum topics. This is a global setting affecting all forums across your project, and only registered users can create Forum topics. If you disable this, you can edit the text and subject for the email notifications that Acknowledge to registered user on new forum topic and Notify admin on new forum topic.
Permalink: select Edit to the URL to this tool.
Email Notifications and Acknowledgements: check Send email notification to admins when new comments are added to ensure the admins you specify in the text field are notified when participants comment on the Forum.
