About Forum

The Forum system provides a space for community members to engage in discussions, ask questions, share information, and connect with others. The forum requires authentication—you must be logged in to view and participate in discussions.

Here's how it works:

• Global and Community Views: The forum offers two ways to browse discussions:
  • Global View: Visit the main Forum page to see all posts from all communities in one place. This is great for discovering discussions across the entire SFDS Network.
  • Community-Specific Views: Each organization has its own forum section (e.g., `/oratorio/forum`) that shows only posts associated with that community. This helps focus discussions on topics relevant to specific groups.
• Post Creation: When creating a new post, you can associate it with a specific community or leave it unassociated (which makes it appear in the global view). This allows you to target your discussion to the right audience.
• Sorting Options: Posts can be sorted by:
  • Date: See the most recent posts first
  • Votes: See the most upvoted posts (can be filtered by day, month, year, or all time)
  • Replies: See posts with the most discussion activity
• Voting System: Members can upvote posts they find helpful or interesting. This helps surface valuable content and encourages quality discussions.
• Threaded Replies: Posts support threaded discussions with nested replies, allowing for organized conversations. You can reply to the original post or to other replies, creating a tree-like discussion structure.
• Post Pinning: Community moderators can pin important posts to the top of forum sections, ensuring critical information stays visible.
• User Profiles: Each post and reply shows the author's profile information, helping community members get to know each other and providing context for contributions.

As a logged-in user, you can create a simple profile that other logged-in members can view in forum sections. Your profile helps other community members get to know you and provides context for your contributions to discussions. Your profile is only displayed to other logged-in members.

Email Notifications

Stay engaged with forum discussions by subscribing to email notifications. You can choose to receive emails in two ways:

• New Post Notifications: Subscribe to receive an email whenever a new post is created in specific communities you're interested in. This helps you stay informed about new discussions and topics.
• Reply Notifications: Enable notifications to receive an email whenever someone replies to one of your posts. This ensures you never miss a response to your questions or contributions.

To manage your forum notification preferences:

• Visit your Account → Notifications page (requires login)
• Select which communities you'd like to receive new post notifications for
• Enable or disable reply notifications for your posts

All notification preferences can be customized or disabled at any time from your notification settings.