Discourse signing in

Discourse overview

Who can use it?

You must have a ModTools (MT) account to sign in to Discourse. National volunteers without a group can be given a backup volunteer MT account. Only Freegle people will be able to use Discourse. (For a month or so non-Freegle people can still use MT, but they will not be able to use Discourse.) You do not need to be a member of Freegle Ltd to use the Discourse system.

A Discourse account is created when you first log in. Existing Tech group members have had accounts set up for them with email settings to match their Yahoo ones - see below

Signing in

Your Discourse login is linked to your MT login. If you are logged in to MT then you will be logged in on Discourse. If you are accessing Discourse on a different browser then you will be shown an MT login screen; once logged in you will be redirected back to Discourse. If the redirect doesn't work for any reason, please go to https://discourse.ilovefreegle.org/ again and you should be logged in automatically.

While there is a Log Out option in Discourse, in practice you will immediately be logged back in (as you will still be logged into MT). To really log out, separately log out from MT and then log out from Discourse. Note the "Log out all" option on Preferences+Account will do the same.

Username and email address

Your Discourse username and email address (for notifications) are set by MT. (You won't need your Discourse username to log in.) If you change your name or email, then you need to log out and in again at Discourse for the change to be seen. Discourse admins cannot change your name or email.

Your username is your MT "Display name" in MT Settings->Personal, with any spaces converted to underscores. If there are two people with the same name, then one of them will have "1" at the end. People can mention you on Discourse eg @Chris_Cant. If I were to change my name then the old references would no longer work.

The email address is the one used to send you notifications (if you want them). And you must send from that email address if you want to post replies or new topics.

User migration

Members of the Freegle-Tech Yahoo group have been set up as users on the Discourse site with appropriate email settings ie for notifications.

• If you have already used Discourse and chosen "Mailing List Mode" then you will get all messages and replies sent out.
• Otherwise, if on individual mails in Yahoo, you are set up as "watching" the Tech category so you will get each post and reply by email.
• If you were on the Tech digest, then you will get an "Activity Summary" mail every 24 hours. Note that this summary covers all the categories, ie not just Tech.
• You will also be set as "watching first post" on the Announcements category ie be notified by mail of any "special notices".

The same will happen for the other groups in due course. You can change any of these settings in your Preferences. You can also opt to receive browser and app notifications - these are pop-ups on your screen or in your phone.