3. Reading Topics
A healthy community needs active members to create and post new content, but this activity is not everything. Readers are the true indicators of how healthy the community is, which is why Discourse remembers right where you left off so you can keep up with the conversation.
Infinite scrolling
Click a topic’s title and read down the list of replies in chronological order—following links or previewing replies and quotes as you go. Use your mouse to scroll the screen, or use the timeline scroll bar on the right to see how far into the conversation you’ve read. On smaller screens, select the bottom progress bar to expand it.
Jump back in
Selecting a topic title will take you to the last read post in the topic. To enter at the top ↑ or bottom ↓ instead, click the reply count to open a context menu, or the last reply date to jump straight to the end of a thread.
When looking at the list of topics, those above the light red line are new or updated since your last visit. If you have read all the way to the end of a topic, the title will be light grey instead of black.
Related topics
At the end of the original post you will also see lists of related topics that are similar to the one you are currently reading:
See who is participating
There are several ways to see who is involved in a particular discussion or topic. On the homepage, you will see a selection of avatars (profile pictures) of:
- The user who started the topic (always the first photo)
- A selection of the most active participants in the thread
- Who created the most recent post (usually the last photo)
At the bottom of the OP, there is a box that will also list useful information about the topic, including:
- Who created the post (displayed as an avatar)
- When the post was created
- The number of replies and views in this topic to date
- The avatars of the most frequent participants in the topic
