Now that the mass email has gone out, I’m going to wait a few days for former CADForum members to reconnect before opening the site up to the general public. If you know someone who needs immediate access, send me a private message with their email address and I will send them an invite link.

[image] jcapriotti: Maybe ask a few basic CAD questions to get started…like What does the CAD acronym mean? Name 3 CAD software programs? What is a blueprint? If you can’t bother to google the answers, maybe you shouldn’t be posting. Yes. Granted if they find it worth while a bot could be…

My $0.02… A forum like this lives or dies by the questions asked, and the visibility of its quality answers to good questions. If it’s not visible/searchable from the outside, nobody new will find it while trying to find answers to their interesting questions and they won’t come here to ask them.

Discourse has the concept of trust levels, for the purpose of preventing new users from doing harm: [image] Understanding Discourse Trust Levels The user trust system is a fundamental cornerstone of Discourse. Trust levels are a way of… Flagging posts is ano…

[image] josh: If it’s not visible/searchable from the outside, nobody new will find it while trying to find answers to their interesting questions and they won’t come here to ask them. I like that you added the word, “interesting”. Well said.

I think however CADForum was managed would be a good template. The noobs would show up once in a while, but it wasn’t anything like what I’ve seen on reddit.

Interesting questions are what keeps the knowledgeable users coming back. If there’s nothing but “how do I run SolidWorks on my Mac” we get bored.

[image] JimSculley: As for ‘dumb’ beginner questions, how many questions about Discourse have I answered in the past couple of weeks that could have been answered by a Google search? The answer is ‘all of them’ because that’s how I found answers to any that I didn’t know. We are probably all …

I would like to point that I see the “private” forum as a way to avoid the admins to be overwhelmed by requests. @JimSculley is doing all the job using his time for free and it is not that he works 24-7 for us exclusively. Trust levels and other settings could be also fine for me as long as the for…

Just for reference, the CADForum site was open to everyone to read, but I believe there were certain functions that required registration, such as searching, direct messages, and a few others. I never had any moderators, although at times it would have been useful. The most actual work for me was d…

I have this huge urge to chip in even thought I have been basically inactive for more than 18 months. Well… it is what it is… I really really really much appreciate having a classic-style forum since those are treasure troves of knowledge. Next word I have had to look up: ephemeral. Discord which i…

Next Steps

CADmunity News

jcapriotti May 21, 2025, 2:04pm 28

No longer possible according to @matt