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What is Discourse?

Alignerr's guide to Discourse

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Written by Dave
Updated over a week ago

Introduction

Discourse is a powerful, open-source forum and chat platform for online communities. It provides a modern, user-friendly experience for discussions around Alignerr projects. Once your onboarding is completed, we will automatically create your Discourse profile. You can access this profile by pressing the Discourse button inside your Alignerr account, clicking the community link within Labelbox, or navigate to community.alignerr.com.


Getting Started with Discourse

  • Setting Up: You just need to log in directly to community.alignerr.com. Please note that you will have to log in with Google auth. Ensure that your Google Chrome profile is set to the profile associated with your Alignerr account so you don't mistakenly log in with the wrong account.

  • Joining a Discourse Category: You will see several default categories (channels). These categories will provide you with some helpful information. As Labelbox projects are created, they will be associated with new categories that you will be included and shown on the Discourse interface.

  • Support: Your support chat through our messenger will be accessible through Discourse. Contact support by clicking the icon in the bottom right corner. All your conversations with support will be carried over across apps (Alignerr, Labelbox, and Discourse).

Key Features of Discourse

  • Categories & Tags: Forums are organized into categories and tags, which help structure content. Categories may represent broad topics, while tags add more specific labels to discussions.

  • Topics & Replies: Each discussion thread is called a "topic," where members can reply and continue the conversation. Replies can be nested to keep discussions organized.

  • Notifications: Discourse provides real-time notifications to keep users engaged and updated. You can customize notification settings to get alerts for replies, mentions, or specific topics and categories.

  • Likes & Badges: You can "like" posts and earn badges for participating in certain activities, adding a social and gamified element to the forum.

Using Discourse for Discussions

  • Creating a Topic: To start a new discussion, click the “+ New Topic” button, choose a category, and give it a title. Topics can be formatted with Markdown for rich text and include images, links, and code snippets.

  • Replying & Quoting: To reply, type in the reply box at the bottom of the topic. You can also quote parts of other messages to provide context. Discourse supports Markdown and HTML for formatting.

  • Mentioning Users: Use “@username” to mention other users, which notifies them of your message.

  • Flagging Content: If you see inappropriate content, you can flag it for moderators to review.

Tips for Users to Maximize Their Discourse Experience

  • Fill Out Your Profile: A complete profile with a bio and picture helps build connections within the community.

  • Use the Search Function: Discourse’s search is powerful—use it to find past discussions and relevant topics.

  • Experiment with Formatting: Discourse supports Markdown, allowing you to format posts with lists, headings, code snippets, and more to improve readability.

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