Forum
Ask questions and discuss with your classmates and teachers, across all your courses or inside one, with votes, tags, bookmarks, answers that can be marked and posts that can be anonymous.
The Forum is where discussion happens. Reaching it from the navigation gives you threads across every course you are enrolled in; each course also has its own Forum tab, scoped to that course alone. They are the same feature at two zoom levels.
Why does adding an index slow down my inserts?
I added an index on the orders table and the nightly import went from four minutes to eleven. Is that expected, or did I index the wrong column?
Is the week 7 worksheet marked?
I cannot tell from the assignments tab whether this one counts towards the final grade.
Threads
A thread is one conversation, and it is one of two types.
| Type | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Discussion | An open-ended conversation with no single right answer |
| Question | A thread seeking an answer, which can then be marked |
A question shows as Question until someone marks a reply as the answer, at which point it is badged Answered. That badge is what makes the forum useful later: a classmate scanning for a solved problem can see at a glance which threads have one.
A discussion that reaches 15 replies wears a Trending flame instead. Nobody sets that. It is counted from the replies, and it goes away if replies are deleted.
Threads can also be Pinned to the top of the feed, or Locked so no new replies are accepted. Both are done by moderators. Existing replies on a locked thread stay visible, and the reply box is replaced by This thread is locked.
Tags
A thread can carry up to five tags of at most 32 characters each, drawn in
the course's colour. Tags are lowercased and de-duplicated when you save, so
Indexing and indexing are the same tag. Changing only the tags does not mark
the thread Edited.
The bar along the bottom
Every thread card, and the thread's own page, carries the same row of controls.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Up and down arrows | Vote the thread up or down. The number between them is the running score. Selecting your own vote again removes it |
| Speech bubble | How many replies it has |
| Eye | How many times it has been opened. Opening a thread counts a view |
| Bookmark | Saves the thread to your Saved tab. It fills in when saved |
| Link | Copies the thread's address, and says Link copied! |
Replies carry votes of their own, so a good answer can be voted up whether or not it is the marked one.
Finding a thread
Five tabs sit above the feed:
| Tab | Shows |
|---|---|
| All | Everything |
| Questions | Question threads only |
| Discussions | Discussion threads only |
| My Threads | Threads you started |
| Saved | Threads you bookmarked |
Next to them is a Past courses toggle, which brings in threads from courses that have finished. It is off by default, so the feed stays about what you are studying now.
Past courses is not offered inside a course
On a course's own Forum tab the toggle is hidden and finished courses are always included, because the scope is already a single course. Without that, an ended course's Forum tab would look empty when it is not.
A search box filters threads by text. Threads are grouped by Today, Yesterday, This week and Earlier, and each row shows the author, the course, and the counts described above.
Posting
New Thread starts one. Inside a course, that button sits in the filter toolbar and the course is already decided. From the whole-account forum you pick the course yourself, and you can only pick courses you are enrolled in.
You choose the type, give it a title of at most 255 characters, write the body and optionally add tags. Replies work the same way, and you can reply to a reply, so a conversation nests one level deep.
The editor handles rich text, code, formulas, tables, mentions and images. Mentions need a course first, because the people you can mention are the people in it.
Anonymous is not anonymous to moderators
Where your school allows it, Post anonymously hides your name from classmates. The form says so plainly: hidden from classmates, visible to moderators. Use it to ask something you would rather not attach your name to, not to say something you would not stand behind. It applies per post, so an anonymous thread can carry a signed reply from you and the other way round.
Editing and deleting your own posts
- You can edit your own thread and your own replies. An edited post is badged Edited, unless all you changed was the tags.
- You can delete a thread you started only while it has no replies. Once somebody has answered, the conversation is no longer only yours to remove. Ask a moderator if it has to go.
- You can delete your own reply at any time. Replies made to it go with it, and the confirmation says so before you commit.
- A locked thread refuses edits as well as new replies.
A course's forum closes 30 days after the class ends
Reading stays open for good, but posting, replying and editing stop thirty days after the class end date. If you need something from a much older course, the threads are still there to read through Past courses.
Marking an answer
On a question thread, the author and moderators can mark a reply as the answer, and unmark it later. That is what flips the thread to Answered everywhere it is listed, including Latest Threads on Home and the Discussion preview on the course Overview.
Troubleshooting
Two rules can close a thread to you. The thread itself may be Locked by a moderator, or the class may have ended more than thirty days ago, which makes the whole course's forum read-only. Neither can be lifted from your side.
Deleting is only available while nobody has replied. That is deliberate: removing a thread would remove other people's answers with it. Edit the thread instead, or ask a moderator to remove it.
Threads belong to one course taught to one class. A classmate in a different class studying the same subject is in a different forum. Check the course name under the author on the thread card.
Both are applied instantly and then confirmed by the server. If the confirmation fails, the count returns to what it was rather than showing you something untrue. Try again.