Welcome to Discourse
After many years of discussion, the TTP has now moved its non-disclosure Mailman lists to the Discourse Forum platform. This forum is private to TTP members and staff from Micro Focus. It is possible to use the Discourse forum via email, via the web interface, or to combine both access methods. The email functionality has been added purely for convenience but please be aware this interface is very simplistic when compared to the online functionality. Moving forward, we will combine the old K-12 and Higher-ed lists into one simply referred to as The TTP.
Quick reference
- Email notification traffic from the forum will arrive in your mailbox from list@thettp.org and will have [TTP] at the start of the subject line.
- To reply to the notification and add a post into the forum by email simply reply to the notification email or jump to the forum using the Visit Topic link at the bottom of the email (after reading the Forum Etiquette section below).
- To send a new email as a new topic into the forum create an email with a subject line detailing the topic of your post and send it to ttp@thettp.org
- To visit the forum online either navigate to the Forum from the menu on the TTP Website www.thettp.org or go there directly using https://forum.thettp.org. In both cases you will login with the Micro Focus username that is associated with your TTP membership.
Initial User Settings
When your account was automatically provisioned, the following default settings were configured:
- Notifications of all posts to the forum will be sent as a message to your Primary Email Address. You can change this in your settings via the web interface.
- If you supplied an additional email address which you may on occasion use to send email to the Forum, this address has been added as your Secondary Email Address. You can change this in your settings via the web interface.
- A default Avatar has been set up for you, which we encourage you to personalize.
- We have tried to add your real name into your user profile but please double-check as your username within Discourse will be your Micro Focus login name and in most cases it will be difficult to work out the real name of the associated person.
Connecting to the Online Forum
The address for the Discourse Forum is https://forum.thettp.org and you will need to login using your Micro Focus credentials that are linked with your TTP membership. You may also access the Forum via the link on the main TTP Website but in this case please remember to login first.
Replying to Forum Posts by email
You can simply reply to the notification email that has been sent to you by Discourse, and this will be placed in the topic thread in the Forum.
Forum Email Etiquette
Although interacting with the Forum works by email there can be some issues if you do not consider things before posting. All text sent to the Forum by email is processed by Markdown and this can cause problems. You are advised to look at the basics of Markdown in the links mentioned below if you are not already familiar with this technology. As a minimum we would ask in order to not upset other users that you do not send emails to the list with complex signature blocks and a copy of the incoming email.
Markdown
Discourse makes use of Markdown when formatting posts and importing emails into forum posts. There are plus point and negative points to this and after a lot of testing we have configured the system to be the most forgiving possible when it comes to email styles. It is different from a simple email list and is something people will get used to in time or they will move to the web interface and not have to worry about it. For example if you include text within < > in your email whatever you put between the < > will be considered as an html command ie <b> will make subsequent text bold but <an aside> will not be understood as html and will be omitted. If you really needed to include <an aside> in the email you would have to enter `<an aside>` and create what is known as a code block.
One of many hands-on tutorials can be found at https://commonmark.org/help/tutorial/ but do note that not all Markdown functionality is supported within Discourse. A text only tutorial can be found at https://github.com/adam-p/markdown-here/wiki/Markdown-Cheatsheet. An overall description of Markdown and why it is useful can be found at https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/ .
Sending posts to the Forum by email
It is possible to send an email to ttp@thettp.org, and the text you place in the Subject line will become the title of the new topic within the Forum. You must send this email from either the Primary or the Secondary email account that you have registered with the Forum or the mail will be rejected. As the Forum knows your usercode associated with the incoming email address, the mail will be converted to a post and assigned to you as the poster. You will not receive a copy of the email you have sent in an email or one that you have posted as a reply to a notification message.
Getting bored with the discussion on a particular topic?
At the bottom of the email notification of a Forum post there is a link to ‘unsubscribe from these emails’. Clicking on this link will give you three options (1) Mute all notifications for this topic, (2) Turn off mailing list mode and from that point forwards receive no notifications from the Forum at all, and (3) Don’t send me any email from the Forum which will stop other members of the Forum emailing you. We suggest only using Option 1. Once you have unsubscribed from any of the email types in this way you can subscribe again using the bell notifications icon either in the main list or the topic/thread available in the web interface.
Archives
All posts within Discourse will be stored within the system and will be fully indexed and searchable using the search option on the top menu bar in the web interface.
Joe Doupnik will also continue to maintain the netlab1.net archives on his machine and these will continue to be accessible via the TTP website www.thettp.org. From the move to Discourse Joe will combine all new email traffic into his HE archive and will leave the old K-12 archive as a static reference.
Changing your email etc
Your usercode within Discourse has two email addresses, the primary and the secondary. Any incoming email from either the primary or secondary address will be associated with your username and you will be seen as the poster. Outgoing notifications and messages from other users will only be sent to the primary email address. You can change either of these email addresses but note that you cannot change your username as this is associated with your membership as it has the associated eDirectory entitlements to validate your TTP membership.
Did you miss the transition process?
It is possible that some people missed the transition process and the associated emails and will find this document in the last email they received from the Mailman list and have received nothing since. In this case a Discourse usercode will not have been created for you and if you send emails to ttp@thettp.org the message will bounce saying you are not a valid user. If this happens to you please email Peter Atkins using patkins@microfocus.com supplying your Micro Focus login name and he will add you to the system.
Link to the Discourse Forum from the TTP Website does not work!
If you click on the Forum link on the website and you are presented with a screen that states you may not join the forum as membership is by ‘Invitation Only’ this means that your account has not been transitioned from Mailman to Discourse. If this happens to you please email Peter Atkins using patkins@microfocus.com supplying your Micro Focus login name and he will add you to the system.
