Following Content in the Forum

Follow boards and people in the Forum to build a more personalized feed and quickly return to the discussions that matter most to you.

The Following tab gives members a personalized Forum feed based on the boards, clubs, and people they follow. Members can also see new posts from their follows in the notification center and receive a consolidated email with new activity from people and boards they follow, club forum boards they have access to, and posts they watch.

The Following tab includes posts from:

Club forum boards do not need to be followed separately. When a member joins a club, posts from that club’s forum boards are automatically included in their Following feed while they have access to the club.

Posts are shown in newest-first order.

If the same post matches more than one of these sources, it still appears only once in the feed.

The Following tab only shows posts the member already has access to view. This includes posts from secret clubs the member has joined. Following a board or person does not give access to restricted content. Members will only see posts they can normally access based on the community, board, club, space, and post visibility rules.

Pending review posts follow the same visibility rules used elsewhere in the Forum. Authors can see their own pending posts, and moderators can see pending posts they are responsible for reviewing.

Visitors who are not signed in do not see the Following tab.

To open the Following tab:

This opens a personalized feed of posts from the boards, clubs, and people the member follows.

If a logged-in member is not following any boards or people and has not joined any clubs with forum boards, the page shows an empty state with an Explore button. Selecting Explore opens the full boards list.

If the member already follows boards or people, or has joined clubs, but there are no matching posts yet, the page shows the standard empty state.

Members can follow a community forum board directly from the board page.

To follow a board:

The board will now be included in the member’s Following feed.

To stop following a board, open the board page and click Unfollow.

Club forum boards do not have a separate follow action. Joining the club is what adds that club’s forum posts to the Following feed.

Members can follow people from member profile pages.

To follow a person:

The person’s posts will now be included in the member’s Following feed when those posts are available to them.

To stop following someone, open their profile and click Unfollow.

If a followed person is no longer available in the community, their posts no longer appear in the Following feed.

Members can manage their saved Forum activity from the Watching & Following page.

This page includes three tabs:

The Following Boards tab shows the boards the member follows, including joined club boards that are currently available to them.

The Following People tab shows the people the member follows.

Selecting a board opens that board page. Selecting a person opens that member’s profile.

Signed-in members also see what they follow in the sidebar of the Forum home page, in two cards: Boards you follow and People you follow.

Each card lists up to five entries, most recently followed first, and See all opens the matching tab on the Watching & Following page. A card is hidden when the member is not following anything of that type.

Boards from clubs the member has joined appear in Boards you follow when the club has its forum enabled. If your community uses a different name for boards, the card title uses your name for them.

The cards appear only on the Forum home page, and only for signed-in members.

Dashboard admins can also use the Forum component in the Page Builder to display posts from the boards, clubs, and people each member follows.

To display followed content:

When Following is selected, the component displays matching posts from that member’s followed content, including forum posts from secret clubs they have joined. Members only see posts they already have access to view.

The Following tab in the notification center shows:

Selecting a notification opens the related Forum post. Each notification is marked as read or unread independently.

Marking a notification as read does not remove the update from the member’s email notifications. New comments and replies on watched posts continue to appear in the Comments tab.

Members can receive a single email summarizing new Forum activity from:

The email organizes new activity into sections for people, boards, and watched posts. Sections without new activity are not shown.

New posts from people you follow

This section lists recent posts from people the member follows. The email shows up to two people, with up to three recent post titles for each person. When there is activity from additional people, the email indicates that more updates are available.

New posts in boards you follow

This section includes community boards the member follows and forum boards in clubs they belong to. Each board shows the number of new posts rather than individual post titles. The email shows up to two boards, prioritizing those with the most new activity.

Posts you watch

This section shows recent comments and replies on posts the member watches. The email shows up to two watched posts, with up to two recent comments or replies for each post.

Selecting an item in the email opens the related person, board, post, or comment.

The email includes new activity since the member’s previous consolidated Forum email, even if they have already viewed that activity in the notification center.

Activity is included only after the member starts following the person or board, starts watching the post, or joins the relevant club.

Activity is not included if:

Posts waiting for moderator review are included after they are approved. If there is no new activity to include, no email is sent.

If the same post qualifies for more than one section of the email, it appears only once. For example, a post from someone the member follows that was also published in a board they follow is included with the person’s activity rather than repeated under the board.

The community’s administrators choose whether these emails are available and how often they are sent. Available frequencies are every three hours, daily, or weekly.

To manage this email:

Turning this setting off stops the consolidated email. It does not unfollow any people, boards, or posts, and it does not remove updates from the Following feed or notification center.

For existing members, the New activity from your follows preference carries over from their previous watched-post email preference. Members who had watched-post emails turned off will not automatically begin receiving the consolidated email.

When email notifications are enabled, admins can select the email frequency:

The Following feed updates automatically as a member’s access changes.

Examples include:

Admins can also track board followers in the dashboard.

The community boards table includes a Followers column that shows the number of followers for each community board. This column can be sorted in ascending or descending order.

Dashboard admins can control whether members can receive consolidated email notifications about the people and boards they follow, forum boards in clubs they belong to, and posts they watch.

To configure these emails:

This community setting controls whether the email is available to members. When it is turned on, each member’s New activity from your follows preference determines whether they receive the email.

Email Communications must be enabled for your community before this setting can be turned on. If Email Communications is not enabled, the setting is unavailable.

These emails count toward the community’s email usage.