Hey y’all, I’ll chime in re: Resonate Handbook and answer some questions that were PMed to me.
I don’t have any devotion per se to using Discourse as a Handbook, but it has proven quite useful to us.
Why I chose Discourse for Resonate’s Handbook
urgency
We urgently needed “one source of truth” for key info at Resonate. Using the forum for this was “safe enough to try”, so I went with it rather than waiting any longer.
markdown
If we wanted to move to another format in the future, it seemed easy to copy/paste materials.
Discoveries
search unifies forum and handbook
For each forum category, you can go to its settings and adjust its priority in search. The hope here is that folks arrive at our forum and search for information, search results will prioritize Handbook (very high) and Help Desk (high). If Handbook were outside Discourse, this search wouldn’t be unified and we’d have to direct folks elsewhere. Since I’m aiming to use the forum as our main “customer service” area, and have it be a place where members can find info independently, this is great.
commenting under handbook topics
Because the Handbook is part of the forum, folks can ask questions and reply on those topics directly. I use these comments to refine Handbook topics and then reply that the topic has been updated – easily notifying the main audience for the changes. This has fostered a good habit where users navigate to these topics, see that others ask for clarification there, and follow suit.
minimize labor
When I reply to common questions on email or social media, I send them to the corresponding Handbook topic. This also serves as a natural way to invite folks to our forum where they can explore and take initiative.
Similar to the point above, if the Handbook is inside the forum, then folks are less likely to choose private/direct means of contact for support – email, etc – that raise the labor burden on staff. The amount of email we’ve received has dramatically decreased since switching to this Handbook + Help Desk + Forum setup.
Replies to PM questions
themes and fonts
I’m… not too familiar with these settings on Discourse yet.
Taking a look around – we’re using Arial as our base font and heading font. Under Admin > Settings > base font; heading font.
We have a unique theme called Resonate, but I don’t know the history of it. It seems Angus updated or adjusted it while he was with contracting us. Here’s the current settings:
sublevels
If Handbook were a parent category, I believe you’d be able to do two levels of nesting. I currently have it as a child category of Help Desk so that folks who go to Help Desk bump into Handbook topics among other discussions. This may not be ideal in the long run.
Sidebar
The sidebar we use is made by Pavilion. It’s called Pavilion. Since we use our forum as a workspace, this is very helpful. Highly recommended
Problems and considerations
DiscoTOC
Recently, the DiscoTOC component which created a really nice within-topic header navigation has stopped working with the Docs plugin, which is a bummer. It’s still working for the standard view; compare below:
Standard + DiscoTOC: 🎶 Submitting music - Guides - Resonate Community Forum
Docs - DiscoTOC: 🎶 Submitting music - Docs - Resonate Community Forum
Who edits the Handbook?
Because of how Discourse is structured, you’ll need to decide who or at what point someone has the right to edit these materials. Compared to the liberty of a true Wiki, a Discourse Handbook will likely be less inclusive and experimental.
Complimentary tag component
Recently discovered this tag component and love it. Its usefulness can be seen on a category such as Proposals to light-weight label proposals as they change status.
https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-popular-tag-sidebar/107853
I likely missed some of the questions – ask away and I’ll help out when I can!