Discussions
Discussions are where the people who offer services on this platform ask each other questions, share what works and build up answers over time. Open them from Discussions in the sidebar. The same feed of threads from your groups also shows on your Home page, under Upcoming lessons.
Who can take part
Discussions open once one of your listings has passed review. From then on you stay in for as long as your account offers services here, whatever happens to your listings later, paused ones included. Only accounts that offer services see Discussions: an account that only books lessons does not.
Everyone appears with their real name, photo, badges and points. The flag beside a name is the country of that person's verified phone number. Press a name to see their card: country, points, badges, when they joined and how many threads and replies they wrote. Your own country shows under Settings → Profile and changes when you change your number under Settings → Account.
Groups
Everything happens in groups. Each one has a name, a description and, if its moderators want them, its own rules, which you read under Group details in the ⋮ menu on the group's page. There are three kinds:
Open: anyone in Discussions can read it, and vote on, save and report posts without joining. Press Join to start threads and reply.
Request to join: anyone can see the name, description and rules, but only members read the threads. Press Request to join, add a message for the moderators if you like, and a moderator accepts or declines you.
Private: hidden from everyone outside it. Its moderators invite people by name. An invitation shows in My groups, marked Invited: open the group and press Accept invitation or Decline.
To find a group, type part of its name in the search box at the top of Discussions, or look under Groups to discover. A private group shows up only for its members and the people invited to it. To leave a group, choose Leave group in the ⋮ menu on its page.
The platform team can show a group in everyone's feed. Its threads then appear in your feed even if you have not joined, and its page is marked In everyone's feed. As in an open group, you can read, vote on, save and report its posts without joining. To start threads and reply, press Join or Request to join on its page. A private group is never shown this way, and a group that becomes private leaves everyone's feed.
Creating a group
Open Discussions, then the ⋮ menu on the My groups card, and choose Create group.
Give the group a name, say what it is about, choose who can join and, if it needs them, write its rules.
Press Send for review.
The platform team checks the name and description first. Until then only you can see the group, and you get a notification once it is reviewed. If it is not approved, the reviewer's note shows on the group's page: press Change and send again to fix it. You can have up to 3 groups waiting for review at once. No two groups can share a name, even one that differs only in capitals or accents. Leaving a group nobody else has seen yet deletes it.
Starting a thread
Open the group and press New thread, at the right of the Back to feed line. You see it once you have joined.
Write a title, a question or topic in one line, and then your post.
For a vote, switch on Add a poll, write 2 to 8 answers and choose when Voting closes.
Press Post thread.
Everyone picks one answer in a poll. You see the results once you have voted or the poll has closed, and nobody ever sees who chose what.
Writing a post
Posts are plain text. Switch on Rich text, beside Attach files, for headings, lists, bold text and pictures inside the text, added from the + menu beside a line. Either way, Attach files adds files under the post:
up to 10 files and pictures per post, counted together
pictures up to 10 MB, audio up to 50 MB, video up to 100 MB and any other file up to 25 MB
Type @ and a name to mention a member of the group: they get a notification. The first 3 links in a post get a preview card under it.
Replies and votes
Press Reply under any post to answer it, so a conversation branches the way it naturally would. The minus button beside a reply folds it and everything under it away, and the plus button opens it again. Past 6 levels on a computer, or 3 on a phone, Continue this thread opens the rest.
Vote a post up or down to help the best answers rise, and press the same arrow again to take your vote back. You can vote on a thread from the list of threads or inside it, but never on your own posts. The points beside a name add up the score of everything that person has posted.
Threads are listed by score and age together, so a new thread with a few votes can sit above an old one with many, and a group's pinned threads come first. Replies are listed highest score first.
The ⋮ menu under your own post has Edit and Delete. An edited post is marked as edited and checked again. A deleted post that has replies stays in place as [deleted], so the conversation under it survives. Deleting the opening post of a thread nobody has answered deletes the thread.
Press Save under a thread's opening post to keep it in your Saved list on the Discussions page. The search box there searches group names and every thread and reply you can read, and Back to feed returns to your feed.
Posts in another language
Posts stay in the language they were written in. When a post is in a different language from the one your dashboard uses, press Translate under it to read it in yours, and Show original to switch back. You can translate up to 60 posts an hour.
The automatic check
Every thread, reply and edit is checked automatically when you post it, and so is every picture. The check looks for:
insults and harassment
scams and spam
asking members for their contact details or client lists
personal details of a student: a full name with facts that identify them, or their phone number, email or address
Promoting your own services is not flagged, and neither is sharing your own contact details. Each group decides about self-promotion in its own rules.
A flagged post is marked Waiting for a moderator, with the reason. Only you and the group's moderators can see it until a moderator approves or removes it. The moderators are told that a post is waiting. Nobody else hears about it: replies and mentions in it notify no one until it is approved.
Reporting a post
If a post breaks the rules, press Report under it, choose a reason and add a note if you like. The group's moderators see the report. A report about a post by the group's owner or one of its moderators goes to the platform team instead. You can report each post once, and up to 20 posts a day.
Moderating a group
Owners and moderators open Manage from the ⋮ menu on the group's page. It has five tabs:
Queue: held posts and open reports. Approve a post, remove it with a reason its author is told, or dismiss a report.
Requests: people asking to join, to approve or decline.
Members: invite anyone in Discussions with Invite someone, and remove or ban members from the ⋮ beside each name. Someone removed can join again, someone banned cannot.
Settings: the description and rules. Changes show at once and are checked again.
Log: every moderator action in the group.
On a thread, the ⋮ menu beside its title pins it to the top of the group, up to 3 per group, or locks it: a locked thread takes no new replies, but votes still count. Moderators also approve, remove and restore posts from the ⋮ menu under each post.
Owning a group
The owner can also rename the group and change its kind in Settings, and from the ⋮ beside a name in Members:
Make moderator and Remove as moderator: a group has up to 10 moderators besides its owner.
Hand over ownership: the moderator becomes the owner and you become a moderator.
Close group, at the bottom of Settings, keeps the group readable but stops new threads and replies until you press Reopen.
When the owner leaves, deletes their account or stops offering services here, the moderator who has held the role longest becomes the owner. If there is none, the group is read only until the platform team names a new owner.
Notifications
You are told about replies to your posts, mentions of you and new threads in your groups. Owners and moderators also hear about join requests, held posts and reports. New threads in one group arrive as one notification that keeps counting until you open the group. To stop them for one group, choose Notification settings in the ⋮ menu on its page and switch off Tell me about new threads. To change how each kind reaches you, go to Settings → Notifications, under Discussions.
If you delete your account
Your threads and replies stay, so the conversations around them still make sense, and they show as written by a Former member, with no name or picture. Your votes are taken back, and your memberships and saved threads are deleted. Groups you own pass to their longest-serving moderator, and a group still waiting for review is deleted. Your posts are included in Download my data, under Settings → Account, so download a copy first if you want one.