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Tutorial: launch your community

This tutorial walks you all the way from a freshly provisioned forum to a community that is ready for real members. It should take about 20 minutes. Follow it in order — each step builds on the last.

By the end you will have logged in as the administrator, given your community a structure, set the rules of the road, invited your first members, and posted a welcome message.

1. Log in as the administrator

Section titled “1. Log in as the administrator”

Your forum comes with an administrator account already created — no default passwords, ever.

  1. In your console, open your forum’s card and click Open to visit the forum, or note its address (your-forum.infoemu.com).
  2. Retrieve the administrator credentials: on the forum’s page in the console, use Reveal admin credentials. The password is shown once — store it in your password manager now.
  3. On the forum, click Login and sign in with those credentials.

Once logged in, open the management area from your account menu. Almost everything in this tutorial happens there.

2. Name your community

Section titled “2. Name your community”
  1. In the management area, go to Settings → General.
  2. Set the project title and subtitle — these appear in the header and browser tab.
  3. Save. Reload the forum in another tab to see the change.

3. Give it a structure

Section titled “3. Give it a structure”

Forums are organised as categories that contain forums (boards), which hold topics and posts.

  1. Go to Forums in the management area.
  2. Create a couple of categories, e.g. Announcements and Community.
  3. Add a forum inside each — for example News under Announcements, and General and Support under Community.
  4. The welcome forum created at provisioning is yours to rename or delete.

For the reasoning behind categories vs. forums vs. topics, see Structure your community.

4. Decide who can join and how

Section titled “4. Decide who can join and how”

Go to Settings → Authentication and choose how registration works:

  • Open registration — anyone can sign up. Turn on account activation so new members confirm their email first.
  • Invite-only — turn on invitation required; members join only with an invite code.
  • Waitlist — collect interested emails before you open the doors. See Collect sign-ups with a waitlist.

Turn on reCAPTCHA (same settings page) if you expect spam sign-ups.

5. Set up your moderation team

Section titled “5. Set up your moderation team”

Don’t hand out admin. Instead, promote trusted members into a moderator group.

  1. Go to Groups and review the built-in groups (Administrator, Super Moderator, Moderator, Member).
  2. When a trusted member appears, edit their account under Users and add them to a moderator group.

Moderators can edit, move, lock, and delete topics and posts from within the forum itself. Full detail: Moderate your community.

6. Post the rules and a welcome

Section titled “6. Post the rules and a welcome”

A visible set of expectations prevents most problems.

  1. As the administrator, open your Announcements → News forum and start a new topic: Welcome — please read the rules.
  2. Write a short, friendly set of community guidelines.
  3. Open the topic and use the moderator tools to highlight it so it stays at the top.

7. Invite your first members

Section titled “7. Invite your first members”

If you chose invite-only or just want to seed the community:

  1. In the management area open Invites → Add, enter an email, and send.
  2. The invitee receives a link that pre-fills their invite code at registration.

That’s it — you have a structured, moderated community with rules posted and your first members on the way.

Where to go next

Section titled “Where to go next”