Add a Discussion page to create a forum and facilitate conversations on your site. This is a good option for adding member-run support for your products, sharing discussions questions with your online community, or creating a place where your visitors can talk.
Tip: To add a single page with one comment thread, create a Guestbook.
Before you begin
- Adding Disqus comments disables commenting on Discussion pages.
- Posts show your your members' display names.
Set up the page
Once you've added the page to your site, open the page configuration to change the title or URL, and adjust these settings:
- Post Ordering - Choose whether to display the oldest entries first, or the newest.
- Posting Permissions - Choose whether anyone can add posts, only members, or only members with editing permission.
- Enable CAPTCHA - We recommend disabling CAPTCHA by unchecking this box. This version of CAPTCHA is outdated, and prevents visitors from leaving comments.
- Items Per Page - Choose to display 1 to 50 posts per page.
When you're done, click Save Page Configuration, or Create Page if you haven't already.
To add a description below the title, enter Structure mode and click Edit Page Description.
How posts and comments display
On your Discussion landing page, each post creates its own topic. Click any topic to see the post and all responses.
When someone adds a new post, they have 15 minutes to make changes to it. Logged-in members with editing permission also see the option to edit posts, and remove or lock entire threads.
Formatting text
When someone adds a post or follow-up comment, the text field can accept some HTML. Here are the available tags:
- Links - <a href="" title="">
- Hover options - <abbr title=""> <acronym title="">
- Emphasis - <b> <strong> <em> <i> <code> <strike>
- Quotes - <blockquote cite="">
For example, this code:
<a href="squarespace.com">Here is a link</a>
<b>Bold</b> | <i>Italic</i> | <strike>Strikeout</strike> | <code>Code</code>
<abbr title="Abbreviation">Abbr</abbr>
<blockquote>Here is some quoted text</blockquote>
Would look like this:
Moderating comments
Site owner
As the site owner, you can manage all comment activity on your site in the Comment & Discussion Management area.
Editors
When site members with editing permission are logged in, they can:
- Remove or move posts on the Discussion landing page.
- Edit individual posts.
- Remove or lock entire threads.
The screenshot below is what they see when they're logged in.
Tip: They may want to subscribe to the page to be notified of new posts.
Note: If you're switching to Squarespace 7, Discussion pages won't import.