Forums

Forums are where topics are kept, and each of them belongs to exactly one category, which is what decides who may read and write in it.

The page groups the forums under their categories, and each row shows the forum's name, its slug and its description, with the check button saving the row, the arrows ordering it within its category and the × deleting it. The arrows stop at the ends of the category the forum belongs to, since ordering happens per category rather than across the whole board.

The slug is the second segment of the URL, so the forum announcements in the category general is reached at /_general/announcements, and it has to be unique across the entire board rather than merely within its category.

Always give a forum a description. It is what the category page shows underneath the forum's name, and a forum that was inserted without one by hand, through SQL rather than through this page, breaks the row when it is read back, and the forum then renders as an empty page with no error to explain itself.

Deleting a forum takes its topics with it, along with the replies in them, whether you delete the forum on its own or delete the category it belongs to. The delete is a soft one, and the rows are marked instead of dropped. Everything marked leaves the listings, leaves Latest Topics, leaves search and the profiles, and returns a 404 on the URLs it used to have.

Adding a forum takes a name, a slug, a description and the category it goes in. A board needs at least one forum before anyone can post.

The page itself: Administration → Board Settings → Forums