Nearly every online course or training program today has some way for students to comment on the material, most often in the form of forums. Online forums have been around for a long time now, so most people are generally aware of the proper etiquette when interacting on them.

Well, most people.

It seems like there are always some individuals who lack the general understanding of forum protocol. It can even be the instructor who is unaware of how to foster engagement and appropriately engage within the conversations. Ultimately the community suffers.

Even if you have been using forums for a long time, reminders on proper behavior are never a bad thing.

Fortunately, the infographic below (created by Touro) is just that – 15 helpful reminders about how to appropriately use forums.

Here at LearnDash, one of our support avenues is a community forum. It’s great because it allows others to help each other, and it acts as a record of all questions that future users can search. It’s safe to say that we have had our fair share of forum interactions.

One of the items that is on the list below that we encounter the most is users asking questions that have already been asked (and answered).

For the most part, it is a good idea to search for your question before posting it in a forum. If you find a similar question to your own, then you can add your question to that existing thread rather than creating a new one. It helps to keep the clutter down 🙂 .

But that is just one forum best-practice. Have a look at the remaining ones below!