Table of Contents
Quick Start
- Go to the Clan Forums (
Clan Home > Forums) with an account with Forum Admin permissions (Admin and Commander groups should have this by default). - Click on "New Subforum", fill out the relevant information, making sure to setup permissions (via the Add Permission link on the editor), then click Save.
- Repeat step 2 until you have all of the subforums you want.
- (Optional) Click on Edit Layout and customize the layout of the Clan Forums.
Forums Overview
Clan Forums are rather simple; there are (sub)forums, threads, and posts. Forums are the "folders" of the Clan Forums, each one can hold any number of other forums and any number of threads. Forums are also where permissions are (primarily) assigned; for each forum you can set the following permissions per each group:
- View - Allows viewing of the forum and all threads within.
- Reply To - Allows replying to existing threads in the forum.
- Create - Allows creating new threads in the forum.
- (Moderate) Threads - Allows editing thread settings (stickied, locked, hidden, and which forum it's located) in addition to being able to view hidden threads.
- (Moderate) Posts - Allows editing posts by any user and setting the edit permissions on posts.
Threads, as noted above, have a few settings which function as follows:
- Stickied - Threads are displayed above non-stickied threads.
- Locked - Threads cannot be posted in by anyone who doesn't have permissions to unlock the thread.
- Hidden - Threads are not visible to anyone who doesn't have permissions to unhide the thread.
- Parent Forum - Sets which forum the thread is located in.
Posts have one setting of interest, "editing restrictions". Editing restrictions allow moderators (and forum administrators) to limit who can edit a post. It's designed for preventing a user from reverting their post after a moderator makes a change, though I'm sure there's other uses.
Discussions Overview
Discussions are an extension of the forums and are really just automatically created threads which are linked to the thing being discussed. This makes them very powerful because it means they act just like any other thread.
Though discussions also can, and by default do, have a special set of permissions assigned to allow anyone who can view the thing being discussed to automatically be able to view/reply to the discussion. Essentially, out of the box, discussions "just work" but they can still be customized, or outright disabled, if desired.
Audits
Audits, or change history, is available for every post, thread, and forum. For posts clicking the Posted/Last updated text will pull up the audit records. Threads' audits can be accessed from the similarly labeled text near the bottom of the page the thread is displayed on. Forums' audits can be accessed via the This Forum dropdown.
Deletion
Forum admins have the ability to delete threads and forums, though using the existing tools to move, hide, or edit content is recommended as deletions cannot be undone.
FAQ
My clan already has a forum, why should we switch?
That really depends on what features your current forum software has, and what features you want; if you are perfectly happy with the forums software your clan is currently using, Clan Tools' Clan Forums doesn't have much, if anything, to offer. Much like Clan Tools as a whole, the question is what is the best tool for your clan and its' particular needs.
As always, I'm happy to answer any questions, either via the forums, in-game, or over TS.
Can clans share parts of their forums with other clans or the general public?
At present, no. This is certainly something I recognize will stop a large portion of clans from being able to use the Clan Forums and it is something I'm planning to add in the future, but it's a complicated issue and I don't have an ETA.
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