This article...

Details how to post discussions and replies directly in the community and via an email message.
Explains ways to reply to discussion threads: publicly to all and privately to the author.
Describes the "recommend" and "Best Answer" features.
Discusses how to edit your own posts and access all your discussion contributions from your profile.
Outlines real-time participation email notifications and managing discussion subscriptions.

Discussion threads are a great way to start an enriching exchange with other community users. The conversation is an opportunity for users to:

engage with one another,
share knowledge and experiences, and
provide helpful advice if necessary.

In order to simplify starting a conversation and continuing an existing one, you can create a discussion thread and reply to a thread in two ways:

directly in the community and
via an email message.

Post in a community thread

To post directly in a community:

NOTE: You must be a member of a community to post to it, unless it's a public community.

Navigate to a community and click the Discussion tab.

NOTE: If the community has the Discussion and Q&A thread types enabled, this tab will be labeled Threads.

Click Post New Message.

NOTE: If the community has the Discussion and Q&A thread types enabled, this button will be labeled Start New Thread.

NOTE: Additionally, most community Home pages include some type of discussion widget that you can post from, as shown below:

Complete the fields on the Post a Message page. You can type or paste your message content and format it with options in the toolbar.

NOTE: If the community has the Discussion and Q&A thread types enabled, the Focus your thread section displays in which you can choose to create a Discussion or a Question.

Field	Description
Post to community	The current community automatically populates this field. You can click the field to select any other community to which you belong.
Cross post to (optional)	You can simultaneously post your thread in another community that you belong to, other than the one that is selected Post to community field. Click the dropdown to view the communities and make a selection. NOTES: - You cannot cross-post when posting via email. - Cross-posting creates two distinct and independent threads; updates to one thread do not affect or appear in the other thread. - Community Admins can create a case to request that this feature be enabled/disabled for the account. The setting is account-wide and cannot be adjusted per community or per post. - You cannot cross-post to a Topic Community because of the requirement to have Topic Tags on every post in a Topic Community, and these tags will not apply to other, non-Topic Communities.
Post message anonymously	If Anonymous Posting is enabled for the community's Discussion (in Communities > Discussions > Anonymous Posting), check the box to hide your identifying information.
Discussion subject	Provide a clear subject to indicate (as closely as possible) the topic of the thread.
Automatically insert content preview for links	If you paste a link to a web page in the editor, the system attempts to capture a relevant image and promotional text for that page. This is then used by the editor to create a preview for the content in your post. Toggle to NO to disable this feature. (Your preference is saved by the system and you'll have to re-enable it if you want to generate content previews.) You can click the remove preview link within the preview to remove it from your post.
Message	Type or paste your message and use the options in the editor's toolbar to apply formatting, insert images and videos, etc. TIP: See Content Editor to learn more about its features.
Signature	Click to view your default signature, which will be added to the bottom of your message. Click Edit Your Default Signature if you want to make changes prior to posting.
Attachments	Click Add attachment and browse to select files to include with your message. NOTE: Files that are attached via this method are automatically added to the community's Resource Library.

When finished, you have a few options:

Click Send to post your message. Any community members who subscribe to receive digests and/or real-time emails will also be sent your message via email.

NOTE: If the community's Discussion is moderated, an Admin user must approve your message before it posts.

Click Schedule to schedule your post for a future date and time.
Click Save as Draft to save your post as a draft that you can finish later. Your work is also automatically saved as a draft whenever there is 10 seconds of inactivity.

See Schedule & Draft to learn more about scheduling and drafting messages.

Post a message via email

If you're subscribed to a community's Discussion, email notifications about new posts will be sent to you per your subscription type (e.g., Real Time, Daily Digest). It's from these messages, similar to the one below, that you can participate in a variety of ways.

NOTE: The default subscription email template configuration is shown and discussed below, so the available buttons and links in your emails may be different. Super Admins can update these templates on the Admin > Communities > Digest Configuration > Discussion Template page. See Manage Your Digest Email Templates for more information.

These options allow you to reply via your email client without having to log in to the community. You can either post a new message to the Discussion OR send a reply to the entire Discussion group. As long as the system recognizes your email address as belonging to a Higher Logic account, your message will post.
Clicking these options takes you to the community Discussion to reply. You can reply to either the message's author directly OR the entire Discussion group.

See Manage Your Community Notifications to learn about Discussion subscriptions and how to manage them.

Real-time participation emails

If you're opted-in to real-time participation emails, a notification will be sent to you when someone replies to one of your discussion posts.

These participation emails ensure that you're immediately notified of the latest developments related to the content you've contributed.

See Real-time Participation Emails to learn more about this feature, including how to manually follow content and how to unsubscribe from participation emails.

Edit a message you've posted

Whether you've started a Discussion thread or replied to someone's, you're free to edit your messages. To do so, navigate to one of your messages and select Edit from the menu on the right.

You can also access all of your Discussion posts (and all your other contributions) right from your profile. Just click My Contributions > List of Contributions.

Reply to a Discussion thread

You can reply to a thread in either of two ways: publicly (in the Discussion) or privately (to just the post's author).

TIP: When replying to a message via either of these methods, click the Original Message button to view the original message and all associated replies in the thread. This is helpful with long or complicated posts that you might want to reference as you draft your reply or when a thread contains numerous posts.

Reply publicly in the thread

Click Reply to post your response inline to the entire discussion group. This will likely be your default response method much of the time to ensure the entire community can view it and engage with you.

When replying this way, you'll use the Basic editor, with a limited set of options. Click the ellipsis (...) icon to expand the Basic Plus editor with additional formatting options (shown below).

Reply privately to the post's author

Select Reply Privately from the menu to respond only and directly to the post's author if, for some reason, you prefer to not post publicly.

NOTE: You cannot reply privately if the author posted anonymously.

Recommend a post

If you come across a post that you think is of particular value, you can recommend it so that other members are alerted to it being content (posts and/or replies) that deserves a look.

NOTE: Super Admins manage this option for their communities. If it doesn't display, it might have been disabled.

The Recommend button displays with the content, which makes it easy to recommend and to see what's been recommended.

NOTE: "Recommend" is the default label for this button, but it is customizable, so it might have a different label in your community.

Click the "Recommend" button to recommend a post or its reply. The adjacent recommend count increases by 1.
Click the recommend count (if 1 or greater) to display a pop up and see who has recommended the content.

NOTE: The pop up is an optional feature and might be disabled in your community.

Mark a Reply as the Best Answer

When someone starts a thread asking a question, there's generally a reply that offers the best answer. If the Best Answer feature is enabled for your community, Super Admins, Community Admins, and the thread's original poster can mark a reply in a discussion as the "best answer" by selecting Make Best Answer from a post's menu.

NOTE: This feature is disabled by default and must be enabled, per community, by a Super Admin. If you don't see this option in your community discussion, contact a Super Admin.

The post is then visually highlighted to indicate this, ensuring other users know.

NOTE: Only one post at a time can be flagged as the Best Answer.

In addition, threads that have a "best answer" reply display a Jump To Best Answer link at the top right, making it easy for users to quickly see the best content.

NOTE: You can clear a best answer post by selecting Clear Best Answer from the ellipsis menu.

See the Make Best Answer section of the Manage your Discussion Threads and Replies article to learn how to enable this feature.

Post Discussion Threads and Replies