Forum's basic instructions

Do you speak a language other than English? Start here: How to use this forum in your language.

A video showing how the Movement Strategy Forum works (7 minutes).

Based on Discourse

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The Movement Strategy Forum is based on Discourse, a very popular open-source platform for community conversations. If you have used other Discourse forums, then you will feel at home here.

Mobile-friendly

To use this forum from your mobile device, just use the browser. All features should be available in the main browsers available to smartphones. We haven’t tested yet in feature phones (feedback is welcome). There is a Discourse app, but it doesn’t add much to the browser version.

A Sandbox to practice

Discourse is user-friendly and designed to offer more features to users as they gain experience. Basic features like creating a topic or replying to a comment are very intuitive. Just try! There is also a Sandbox that you can use to practice.

Learn with Discobot

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Discobot is a bot that welcomes all new users. If you reply to its welcome message, you will go through an interactive tutorial to learn the basics. If you missed this message, it should be in your inbox.

Check your Preferences

In Preferences, you can configure this forum to your taste. You can fill your profile, or leave it empty and even hide it. You can set your default homepage, change to a dark theme, increase the font size, and more.

Tune your notifications

Also in Preferences, you can specify when you want to receive emails (and you can reply to forum posts via email).

The system of notifications is very flexible. You can “track” or “watch” topics, tags, and categories to receive notifications when they are updated. Or you can “mute” them to stop receiving notifications from them. You can also set these notifications as you browse the forum. Look for the bell icon. :bell:

Privacy features

If you prefer to reinforce your privacy in the forum, check these features:

  • Under Notifications, you can disable “Allow other users to send me personal messages”.
  • Under Users, there are options to ignore and mute other users and to select specific users that can send you messages.
  • Under Interface, there is “Hide my public profile and presence features”.

See also User privacy considerations in this forum.

Your opinion from :heart: to :black_flag:

You can share your (emoji) reaction to thank the author of a post or to express your opinion about it.

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If you see a post that is inappropriate or that belongs somewhere else, you can flag it. When someone flags a post, only the moderators and administrators can see who has flagged it. Everyone else (including the author of the post) only see the flag. See also the Guidelines.

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Text lost? Check your Drafts

Nobody likes to lose a text after putting some effort into writing it. Thankfully, Discourse saves your draft as you type it. If you lose your page due to a technical problem, check on your Drafts.

Where to learn more

Everyone is welcome to ask questions on the Forum how-to category.

From the Discourse team, check the short New User Tips and Tricks and the
more extensive New User Guide.

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