Set community to offline mode
If you are performing maintenance on your community, you may want to prevent activity from taking place as you resolve issues. With offline mode, you can present a notice to visitors so they know maintenance is underway and that they cannot participate until the community comes back online. When the community is in offline mode, members cannot: sign in read content create new posts or reply to any content like posts, mark posts as solutions, tag posts, or edit posts reply to messages in their inbox or create new private messages follow or manage existing follows update their member settings Members can still receive email notifications if content is posted by admins during the time the community is offline. When the community is in offline mode, admins are still able to: sign in to the community post content modify site settings update the theme use back-end functionality such as APIs Enable offline mode Open the Account menu and go to Settings > System. Below General, toggle on Enable community offline mode. Confirm this action by selecting Take Community Offline. Customize your maintenance page You can customize the title and message on your maintenance page so that your visitors know what to expect when they reach your community while it is offline. To customize the message: On Settings > System > General, below Enable community offline mode, select Edit beside Title and Description. In the Edit Offline Text window, edit the Title and Description as desired. Select Save.Aurora: Configure community guidelines
You can enable community guidelines for your community to ensure your members know what is expected of them in the community. These can be linked to an external URL or built within your Aurora community itself. You can designate your guidelines as required reading for registration or just provide a link on the registration window for new members. Depending on what you’re going for, building your guidelines within Aurora creates a seamless experience with consistent branding, while linking to an external URL enables you to use one central location where your document lives so you don’t have to update it in multiple places. For localized communities, you can provide guidelines in all your available community languages to ensure that all members of your community are aligned on expectations regardless of language. Provide link to guidelines on registration window Open the Account menu and select Settings. Go to System > Account > Registration. To add your guidelines to the registration window, turn on the Add community guidelines link to registration page toggle. (Optional) To require new members to select a checkbox indicating that they read and agree to the community guidelines, select Edit, and then select the Acceptance required checkbox. To designate whether you want to host the guidelines on your community or link to an existing page, select Edit, and then select Community or External. Set up guidelines on your community Whether your members reach your community guidelines from the registration window or elsewhere in your community, you can edit them from right within your community to ensure a seamless experience. After selecting Community, select Save. Select View/Edit Community Guidelines. On the Community Guidelines page that opens, select Edit Community Guidelines. Select a language from the drop-down menu. Select Continue. Enter your community guidelines. Repeat for your other community languages. Link to external community guidelines On the Edit Community Guidelines window, for all of your community languages, enter the URL to your community guidelines. Note: If you do not provide a URL for a particular language, members who select the community guidelines link while in that language are redirected to the community guidelines URL for your community’s default language. If the default language’s URL is also missing, members are redirected to the community-based guidelines page. Select Save.Aurora: Configure privacy policy
You can enable a privacy policy for your community to ensure your members know how your community collects, uses, and protects their personal data. Your privacy policy can be linked to an external URL or built within your Aurora community. You can designate your policy as required reading for registration or just provide a link on the registration window for new members. Depending on what you’re going for, building your privacy policy within Aurora creates a seamless experience with consistent branding, while linking to an external URL enables you to use one central location where your document lives so you don’t have to update it in multiple places. For localized communities, you can provide privacy policies in all your available community languages to ensure that all members of your community are aligned on security regardless of language. Provide link to privacy policy on registration window Open the Account menu and select Settings. Go to System > Account > Registration. To add your guidelines to the registration window, turn on the Add privacy policy link to registration page toggle. (Optional) To require new members to select a checkbox indicating that they read and agree to the privacy policy, select Edit, and then select the Acceptance required checkbox. To designate whether you want to host the guidelines on your community or link to an existing page, select Edit, and then select Community or External. Set up a privacy policy on your community Whether your members reach your privacy policy from the registration window or elsewhere in your community, you can edit them from right within your community to ensure a seamless experience. After selecting Community, select Save. Select View/Edit Privacy Policy. On the Privacy Policy page that opens, select Edit Privacy Policy. Select a language from the drop-down menu. Select Continue. Enter your privacy policy. Repeat for your other community languages. Link to an external privacy policy On the Edit Privacy Policy window, for all of your community languages, enter the URL to your privacy policy. Note: If you do not provide a URL for a particular language, members who select the privacy policy link while in that language are redirected to the privacy policy URL for your community’s default language. If the default language’s URL is also missing, members are redirected to the community-based privacy policy page. Select Save.Aurora: Comments and replies to posts
Replies and comments spark excitement and lead to more engagement on content because they can transform a static piece of content into an interactive conversation with peers and other experts.. Threaded comments and replies help visualise the hierarchy of different conversations that can splinter off from the main topic. This article covers: An example of commenting on topics Managing Comments Receive notifications Conversation display formats Sorting the order of conversations Members can engage with published posts by giving Likes and commenting on them. Let's take an example of commenting on a knowledge base article. Comments on blogs, events and ideas, and replies on forums follow the same process. 8 STEPS 1. Scroll down on the article you want to comment on 2. Click Comment 3. Or scroll down and directly comment on the comment box available. 4. Type a comment 5. Click Reply 6. Your comment is posted. 7. You can also comment on another comment. 8. That's it. You're done. Here's an interactive tutorial ** Best experienced in Full Screen (click the icon in the top right corner before you begin) ** https://www.iorad.com/player/2051688/comment-on-articles-and-posts You can view all the comments based on its recency and likes received. You can also reply to comments in athreaded fashion and give Likes Managing Comments Community is a place where a lot of conversations pour in from different sources. It becomes necessary to keep the community clean, maintain relevance of topics being discussed, and have a healthy engagement. There are several options with which you can manage comments or replies to forum discussions, Blogs posts, and KB articles. The availability of these options are based on member permissions. Note: By default, members who comment or reply on a piece of content (Forum discussion, blog post, idea, or KB article) will automatically follow that piece of content. Members must have Manage comments on any post and Manage comments on own post permissions to edit and delete comments or replies to the post. As an Admin or moderator you can use these options to: Edit comments: Members who posted the reply or with elevated permissions (Admins and Moderators) can edit the reply or comment. Move comments: Members with elevated permissions can move a reply or comment to the new location or start a new discussion from the reply or comment. Copy Link: Any member can copy the link of the reply. When you open the link in new tab, the page focuses on the respective reply of the post: Click View Full Discussion to view all the replies to the post. Follow: Members can follow replies and comments to get notified of the updates. Learn more about following comment or reply. Delete: Members with elevated permissions (Admins and moderators) can delete a comment or reply to the post. When you delete a reply, all its threaded replies are deleted along with the main reply. Reject: Members with elevated permission can reject content. If you mark a post as spam and change your mind later, you can recover the message. Block or allow Replies and Comments: Authors of the post or members with elevated permissions (Admins and moderators) can block and unblock new replies or comments to the post. As a member, apart form copying link and following content you can also Report an inappropriate content. Notification Options for Message and Reply Actions To comply with DSA requirements, we've added a feature that notifies members when their replies or comments are edited, moved, or deleted by members with appropriate permissions. Additionally, all members who have replied to the post will receive these notifications. Below is an example of the confirmation message you receive when you try to delete a comment on an article. Conversation display format To tailor community conversation view to better suit your community’s needs, admins can opt to display replies and comments in either linear or threaded manner. To set this display format: Open theAccountMenu. Go toSettings > Features > Content Features > Replies and Comments. From the Display format drop-down menu select the preferred display option. The Display format set by the admin order does not override a member's individual preferences. For example, if a member has chosen to view replies and comments in Threaded order but the admin has set the default to Linear, the member sees them displayed according to their personal preference of Threaded. If members choose the Community Default option, the admin's settings apply across all boards for those members. Replies and Comments sort order Admins can customize the sort order for replies and comments at both the community and board levels, offering additional control over how discussions are organized and displayed to members. To set the sort order: Open theAccountMenu. Go toSettings > Features > Content Features > Replies and Comments. From the Default sort order drop-down menu, select your preferred sorting method to organize all replies and comments across your community. The default sort order does not override a member's individual preferences. For example, if a member has chosen to view replies and comments in Oldest to Newest order but the admin has set the default to Most Liked, the member sees them displayed according to their personal preference of oldest to newest. If members choose the Community Default option, the admin's settings apply across all boards for those members. Also, members can change the order from the community post page containing comments or replies. Changes to the sort order on the post page are saved in member’s preferences. Note: By default, the admin setting is set to order by Most Liked, and for members, it is set to Community Default.Aurora: Manage Content Dashboard
The Manage Content dashboard is a one-point stop for: Managing drafts & published content: authors can manage blogs & KB drafts as well as published posts/articles. Content management: moderators can maintain a healthy community. Read on to learn more. Managing drafts & published content As an author, you may want to save your content to share it with other members for review or come back and edit contentlater to add more info or make any corrections. After you have saved any drafts, you can access them from the Drafts tab in the Manage ContentDashboard. Depending on your permissions, you can view all your drafts and other members' drafts. You can also view the author and any co-authors as well as when the article was last updated. Learn more about draft blog contentand draft knowledge base content. Learn more about Content Management and Approval. Content management Spam Community spam management tools run in the background and each new post is logged and tested for spam. The tools automatically test posts against a complex set of rules. Our system learns about your site content as it monitors all your boards and forums, enabling it to improve its content filtering over time. All posts classified as spam are moved to theManage Content dashboard on the Spam tab. Admins and moderators can review and recover the spammed posts, if needed. Learn more about spam management. Abuse To combat abusive content, members with appropriate permissions can report any content or private messages they find inappropriate in the community. You can report any content or private messages that you find violent, harmful, misleading, or other specific reasons. When you report a content, the content is listed on the Abuse tab in the Manage Content dashboard. Admins and moderators can manage this reported content with various options available out of the box. Learn more about abuse management Moderation Moderators constantly monitor community activity by reviewing content for appropriateness based on the guidelines you’ve put in place for your community. Using theModeration tab in the Manage Contentdashboard, moderators can quickly review and process large volumes of user-generated content. Depending on how you’ve set up your moderation process, content can be reviewed either before or after it is published to the community. From theModerationtab, you can moderate forum posts and replies, blog comments, and knowledge base comments. Also, you can view the posts or private messages that are rejected as spam, abuse, or for other reasons and take further action on these posts. Learn more about Moderation. Tags From time to time, you might want to review the tags used across the community to understand how the content is being categorized and organized. This can also be one of the factors to understand members' engagement and contribution to the community. Admins and members with the Manage Tags permission can access the Tags tab in the Manage Content dashboard, where they can review the complete list of tags. Learn more about reviewing tags added in the community.About Aurora Moderation
It is important for your community to be a positive space where members feel welcome, safe, and engaged. To foster this environment, moderators constantly monitor community activity by reviewing content for appropriateness, based on the guidelines you’ve put in place for your community. Using the Moderation tab in the Content Managementdashboard, moderators can quickly review and process large volumes of member-generated content. Depending on how you’ve set up your moderation process, content can be reviewed either before or after it is published to the community. From the Moderation tab, you can moderate forum discussion posts and their replies, ideas and their comments, as well as comments on blogs, knowledge bases, and events. Also, you can view the posts or private messages that are rejected as spam, abuse, or for other reasons and take further action on these posts or private messages. Moderation process You can set the moderation mode at the board level. Required: Moderators must moderate content to make it available in the community. (This was previously known as pre-moderation in Communities Classic.) Selective: The content is published, but moderators can moderate it after publication. (This was previously known as post-moderation in Communities Classic.) Auto-approved: Content does not require moderation and is approved automatically. Learn more about configuring moderation modes for various content types. When members post content on the community, the content is immediately routed to the Moderation, based on the moderation settings for that board. Note: When a board is set to Required moderation and members post content on this board, a confirmation message is displayed on the post indicating that post will be published as soon as it is approved from moderators: View Moderation tab Members with elevated permissions (Admins and Moderators) can access the Moderation tab in the Manage Content dashboard. Note that you must enable content moderation at the community level to view the Moderation tab. Members will see the Spam, Abuse, and Moderation tabs. The Moderation tab is where you can review content. By default, the Moderation tab is displayed with the list of unmoderated posts, where the Moderation status is set to unmoderated. The Moderation tab lists: Title: title of the post, reply, or comment Author: authors of the posts and replies Date: the date on which the post or reply is sent for moderation. Status: the publication status (Published or Unpublished) of the posts and replies. Number of views, likes, and comments for each post, reply, or comment. Note: You can sort this list based on the Date. From the Moderation tab, moderators evaluate the posts and replies. They can then approve or reject them, and also message authors about their content. When approved, posts are published in the community or remain in the community based on the moderation settings at board level. They are then removed from the Moderation tab. When rejected, the posts are removed from the community. The posts that are rejected as spam can also be viewed in the Spam tab. Learn more about approving or rejecting posts sent for moderation. To view the rejected posts or private messages, go to Filters and set Moderation Status as Rejected. From the Moderation tab, you can: Open any post to view the content Search and filter posts Approve or reject posts Message members on moderation actions about their posts Review the posts or private messages that have been rejected as Spam, Abuse, or other reasons Refer to the Khoros Communities Moderation Essentials course for training on this feature.Aurora: Bypass moderation
Members generally want to post content without moderation review. Admins can grant the Bypass moderationor Bypass comment moderation permissions to enable certain members to post or comment without moderation review. This option applies when the Moderation type is Selective or Required. Note: At this time, moderation cannot be set up by role, but this feature may be available in a future release. Instead, you can use theBypass moderationpermission to ensure that members with certain roles do not require moderation. See the screenshot below for the Discussion (forums) permission. This setting can be applied to all discussion styles. Learn more about configuring moderation modes for various content types.Aurora: Enable content moderation and set content moderation defaults
Community moderators review and process large volumes of member-generated content. Moderation is an important part of keeping a community a safe and engaging space for your members to participate. When Content moderation is enabled (from the Settings > Features > Moderation area), members with appropriate permissions can review content from the Content Managementdashboard. Depending on how you configure the moderation settings, content can also be auto-approved and skip the moderation process. The moderation process depends on the defaults you set for various boards. Admins can set these moderation defaults for forum discussions and replies, blog comments, ideas and their comments, and knowledge base comments at the community, category, and board levels. Auto-approved:The content is auto-approved and made public without going through moderation review unless flagged. Recommended for trusted areas that are self-regulated by a small group of members. Selective: The content is made public to the community without going through moderation. However, moderators can selectively review this content later, and based on the review, the content stays or is removed from the community. Required:The content must go through moderation for review, and based on the moderator's evaluation, the content is either published or removed from the community. By default, Selective moderationis set for all boards. Understanding the different moderation options Before configuring the content moderation defaults, you must understand the benefits and risks of each option: Auto-approved: Set Auto-approved for places that are designed for open discussions without any need for regulating the content posted by members. Use this option in places that are self-regulated by a small group of members who are accountable for their actions. However, we still recommend you implement the moderation process within the community to avoid spreading inappropriate information. Selective: Similar to Auto-approved, the Selective moderation process also encourages open communication among members in that they can publish content immediately without prior review. Moderators can still review the published content to ensure the posted content is appropriate and adheres to the community’s principles. Use this option in places where members expect fast-paced and live interaction without having to wait long for the moderation process to complete. However, when moderation is delayed, there is the potential risk of inappropriate content (abuse or spam) being posted that impacts readers and disrupts the community. Compared to the Required moderation process, this process is less effective in avoiding spam and abusive content. Required: Required moderation is the best way to combat spam and abusive content because the content is sent to the moderation before it’s made public in the community. This also protects your community’s reputation and creates a safe space for your members by ensuring the appropriate content is posted in the community. However, this process relies on additional resources to review the content, which may delay making the content public. This can disappoint members who want their content to be made public quickly. Enable and set content moderation defaults at community level Sign in to the community as an Admin. Open the Account menu and go to Settings > Features. Click Moderation. The General settings page displays spam and content moderation settings. Here, you can set default moderation statuses for forum topics and replies, blog comments, event comments, idea and comments, and knowledge base comments. To enable content moderation, toggle on theContent moderation option. Note that you cannot moderate the content across the community if this option is not enabled. Under Content moderation defaults, set default moderation statuses for forum topics and replies, blog comments, event comments, ideas and comments, and knowledge base comments at community level. Let’s look at an example in which you want to moderate all forum topics and their replies in the community before they are published to the community. To enable this moderation workflow, set the Default Forum topic and reply status as Required moderation. Based on these settings, all forum topics and replies are sent to the Moderationfor review and are published after the moderator’s evaluation. Similarly, you can set default statuses for other content types. Set content moderation defaults at category, group, or board levels The Content moderation defaults set at the community level are inherited to the category, group, and board levels. You can override these options at various levels as needed. Based on the inheritance, the settings applied at different levels are inherited to child places from their parent levels. For example, the content moderation defaults set at category or group levels are inherited to their child places. Learn more about setting inheritance. Let’s look at an example in which you want to set content moderation defaults at category level. To set content moderation defaults at category level: Open the Account menu and go to Settings > Community Structure. On theCommunity Structure page,click the category where you want to set the content moderation defaults. In the category settings, go to the Moderation section and set Content Moderation defaults as required. When you’ve adjusted a setting for a child place, a PARENT OVERRIDE indicator is displayed next to that setting for the child place to indicate that it overrides the settings of its parent. Similarly, you can set content moderation defaults at the group and board levels. Based on these board-level settings, when members post content on the community, the content is immediately routed to the Moderation for review. When a board is set to Required moderation and members post content on this board, a confirmation message is displayed on the post indicating that post will be published as soon as it is approved from moderators: From the Moderation tab, moderators can review content for appropriateness. They can then approve or reject it, and also message authors of the posts. Learn more about moderating content. Note: it is not possible to set different moderation levels for comments(or replies) and main posts Grant permissions to moderate content Moderation permissions should be granted only to roles assigned to trusted individuals. To manage this permission: Navigate toAdmin > Settings > Users > Roles and Permissions. In the row of the role for which you want to manage this permission, click theOptionsmenu and thenEdit. In thePermissionsarea, belowModeration, locateModerate Content. SelectGrantorDenyas required.About Aurora Content Types
Khoros Communities excel at connecting people, building relationships with product experts, and driving brand engagement. Of course, at the heart of any community is the content, and Khoros Community provides several Content Types your members can participate in. But which content type should you use? Each content type is designed for different types of content and drives different types of community engagement: Forums: Connect product experts and brand enthusiasts through peer-to-peer discussions. Blogs: Attract customers by publishing content from top experts. Blogs are one of the best ways to build your audience and keep your community informed. Knowledge bases: Empower customers and employees to turn peer-generated conversations and knowledge from Aurora Communities into polished, searchable articles. Events: Events are a collection of community-hosted activities (seminars, meet-ups, conferences). You can notify community members of online or in-person events by publishing them in the Events calendar. Ideas: Crowd-source innovation by enabling customers to submit ideas, vote, and provide comments. Generate thousands of prioritized ideas that help you build better products and deepen customer loyalty. Groups: Groups deliver an enhanced experience for community members to engage around a common theme or purpose. Each group has its own configurable set of content types (the content types shown in this article) to organize content and communication. Forums Khoros Forums enable you to connect product experts and brand enthusiasts through peer-to-peer discussions. Both newbies and experienced members can read, post, and easily respond. You can create forums that are as broad or as focused as you need for your products or services. For example, you could have a forum dedicated to an entire product line of printers or forums focused on a specific printer. It’s up to you. Check out Atlas Community’s Discussion Forum Learn more about forums. Blogs Blogs drive traffic to your community. Unlike standalone blog products, Khoros Blogs is integrated with our community platform, ensuring a cohesive experience as users explore and learn. Blogs are a great way to publish content pertaining to your brand, be it product announcements, industry expertise, or news and events. Check out Atlas Community’s Developer Blog where experts share information and recommendations based on products and labels. Learn more about blogs. Knowledge Bases With Khoros knowledge bases (or KBs), members can create trusted content focused on specific topics or themes. For example, you might have KBs focused on product documentation, support FAQs, best practices, or use cases. You can enable specific members to write and maintain these articles as well as enable trusted community members to contribute to these articles. Check out Atlas Community’s Support Information Knowledge Base articles shared and curated by Khoros experts in an efficient and organized way. Learn more about knowledge bases. Events Events provide a platform to schedule, announce, inform, and discuss everything from the smallest group gathering to the largest user conference. These community-hosted activities harness the enthusiasm generated by interactions between your customers, company, and brand ambassadors and foster deeper connections with your customers.With Khoros Events you can: host live Stream Video outside your community (for example, from YouTube, Facebook, or Vimeo) by providing a URL of the live video. You can also provide the URL of a pre-recorded video. integrateZoom meetings and webinars within your community. Learn more about Events. Ideas From time to time, your customers might have ideas about how to make your products better. These ideas could be minor enhancements or a completely new feature. Khoros Ideas enables you to capture these customer ideas, let other members vote on these ideas, and share these ideas with your internal product teams. By enabling members to submit their own ideas, you are encouraging them to be thought partners with your company and stand out among their community peers. Submitted ideas are reviewed by your internal teams and assignedstatuses(for example, Under consideration, Accepted, or Declined) so everyone in the community can track the idea’s progress, vote on ideas they like, and even discuss the ideas by posting comments. Learn more about Ideas. Groups Within a community, smaller communities form organically or out of necessity. Groups help you to create, organise and scope these conversations to the right audience so that the conversation remains relevant and insightful, enabling customers to say what they want to say, how they want to say. With Khoros' Groups you can have Open, Closed and Hidden Groups. With Open Groups, you provide access to all community members to read and comment on the content in the Group although only owners of the Group can create content . Closed and Hidden Groups take privacy a step further. Non-members of Closed Group can see that a Group exits but only members can read, comment or reply. Hidden Groups are completely invisible to the community except for its members. Use Hidden Groups when you need confidentiality, security and privileged access to information is need, yet you need right members to easily access right content. Learn more about Groups Related topics: About Community site structure Set permissions at the board level
