Welcome to Waze Discuss, a guide by Waze Communities Team

UPDATE REQUESTS

DISCUSSIONS

LOCAL FORUMS

Welcome to WAZE DISCUSS

Terminology

This doc uses the term Discourse when referring to the 3rd party platform, And Discuss, Waze Discuss or WD, when referring to our installation of Discourse, with its customizations and enhancements. There's so much to learn about Discourse! We strongly recommend consulting with Discourse's official site when needed. Thank you, Waze Communities Team

CONTENT

Categories on Waze Discuss

4

1. What are they

   4

2. How to create a category

   4

User Groups on Waze Discuss

8 What are they? Create a new group

Badges on Waze Discuss

9 What are they? 9 9 Where do users see Badges on Waze Discuss? 9 9 How do users earn Badges? 9 9

Flairs on Waze Discuss

10 10 What are they? How can users control which Flair will be shown next to their posts on Waze Discuss? How can staff control Flairs to Waze Discuss? 10

Opting out of a community on Waze Discuss

11

Opting out of Waze Discuss emails

11

Email Controls

11

Moderation / spam queue

11 What is it? 11 Who gets notified about flagged users / posts that are pending review? 12 What should I do if I get notified? 12

Category Moderators on Discuss

12 What permissions do Category moderators get? 12 How do we grant Category Moderation permissions? 12

Blocking users from Discuss

13 When should this option be used? 13 Who can block users? 13 How do we block users? 13 Important note 13

User Profile page

13 Where do I find it? 13 How can I see another user's profile page? 13 Who can see a user's profile's page? 13

Cool capabilities that are good to know about

13

Posting and Editing

14

"Whispers" - posts that are only visible to moderators and admins

14 I'm a mod, why would I post a Whisper? 14 I'm a mod, how do I post a Whisper? 14 What do whispers look like?

"Staff Notices" - those message bars on top of posts and topics

15 What are Staff Notices? 15 10 8 8 8

Staff Notices Appearance

What do Staff Notices look like? How do I post a Staff Notice? Pin a post Can I set a timer to post / lock a topic? Lock a topic A topic was posted in the wrong category. Can I move it? Moving a topic to another category Merging 2 topics Embedding Google docs / sheets / slides in posts Level up your post formatting on Waze Discuss

Tags

19 What are they? 19 Who can add a tag to a topic and how do they do it? Can tags be automatically added to topics? 20 What's the problem with tags? 20 What can we do to better control tags? 20 Who can create / delete / edit tags?

Assigning topics

21 What is it? 21 What if the Assign button isn't there? 21 Who can have topics assigned to them? 21 Who can assign topics to others? 22 Where can I see my assigned topics? 22

Solving topics

22 What is it? 22 How do I enable it for my category? 22

Direct Messages on Waze Discuss

22

Translating / localizing Waze Discuss

22 22 How can I fix a string that's not translated correctly? 23 How can I Localize Discuss to my language? 23

Signatures in Waze Discuss

23

Birthdays and anniversaries

24

AI Summarization in WD

24

Trust Levels (TLs) in WD

25 What are they? 25 26 How can admins and mods control TLs?

Categories on Waze Discuss

1. What are they
   1. Forums / Sub-forms, i.e .: Beta Community, Editors, and their nested forums
   2. Permissions: Admins and Moderators can create new categories and manage existing ones
   3. How many sublevels can we have? 3, i.e: Beta - Discussions - Beta Leaders
      1. We cannot create additional sub forums under the 3rd level. "Beta Leaders" in this example.
      2. We can create posts in each of the levels.
2. How to create a category
   1. Access the main page on Waze Discuss: https://www.waze.com/discuss/
   2. Click the 3 dots button (next to New Topic) - New Category (remember that this menu has the option to "Reorder Categories)
      1. General:
         1. Name your new category
         2. Slug: Optional
         3. Parent category: VERY IMPORTANT - nest your category under the right parent category. If you don't, your category will appear on the main page.
         4. Description:
            1. This is the description that appears in the category's top banner:

               Q waze discuss ... Welcome to Waze Discuss! Ask the community, share ideas, and connect with other Waze users! all categories all tags Categories Latest New (18) Unread (24) Top ... + New Topic

            2. Strange behavior you should know about:

               When you update a category's description, it only shows up in the top banner after you:

               1. Update the description in the page that opens when you open the Description Editor (it looks like you're writing a new topic).
               2. Hit Save Category, in Category management.
         5. Choose nice background and foreground colors for the category. It's good practice to keep your categories in the Waze color pallet. HIT SAVE!
      2. Security:
         1. Add the user groups that need access to the forum
         2. Grant them the right permissions: See / Reply / Create.

            Important note: A user group needs to have access to the top-level forums, to be able to access nested forums. I.e .:

            • Forum: Beta - Discussions - Beta Leaders
            • User group: BLs.

              The BLs User Group needs to have access to all 3 levels mentioned above, to be able to access the nested forum "Beta Leaders".

            Getting this error message? An error occurred: Any group that is allowed to access a subcategory must also be allowed to access the parent category. The following groups have access to one of the subcategories, but no access to parent category: everyone. OK Check the Security tab for groups that have access to your sub-forum, but do not have access to the higher-level forums (under which your forum is nested). HIT SAVE!

      3. Settings:
         1. Moderation: If you'd like to grant a group of non-staffers moderators access to this category, add the group's name in this field.
         2. Appearance:

            To have all categories aligned on appearance, please use the Boxes style:

            1. Check this box: Show subcategory list above topics in this category.
            2. Subcategory List Style: BoxesAppearance

               Default Topic List: Top

               • Default Top Period:

                 Weekly Topic List Sort By: Activity Descending Default List Filter: all topics Show subcategory list above topics in this category. Subcategory List Style: Boxes

         3. Solved: If you'd like to allow users to mark comments as solutions, which will make the thread close after a duration of time you choose, choose your settings in this section.
         4. Topic voting: If you'd like to allow users to vote on topics, check this box.
         5. Waze forms: Staff only - If you'd like to embed a Waze Form (like the Beta Bug form) in this category, check this box.

            HIT SAVE!

      4. Images:
         1. Category Logo Image: The small square icon that appears in the top-level box view.
         2. Category Background Image: The big rectangle image that appears on top of the category, next to the description.

            Images will be provided by the Waze team. HIT SAVE!

      5. Template:

         Adding a template means that any new topic created in this category, will start with the template text you set for it, like so:

         Edit: Suggestions Waze Beta Community Suggestions 4 Back to category Template General BI " OEE Security 1. ** My suggestion is for the following feature :** Settings 2. ** My suggestion solves this problem :** 3. ** In more words :** Images Template Thanks! Tags Please review the list under "Your topic is similar to ... " before posting Hi, I confirm that I checked if this idea has already been posted, and did not find it: 1. My suggestion is for the following feature: 2. My suggestion solves this problem: 3. In more words: Thanks! Save Category Delete Category

         Use case examples:

         • Beta bugs or topics, with required fields, example from the Routing forum
         • Map Update Requests, with required fields

           Users can overwrite the template / remove / edit them, when creating a topic. Want new topics to follow a template? This is where to set it: Category management - Template HIT SAVE!

      6. Tags

         Tags are great for managing content! They can be added to topics, and then filtered by. Read more about them, in the section of this document dedicated to Tags.

User Groups on Waze Discuss

What are User Groups?

User Groups are the way we manage access to categories and more, on Discourse.

Create a new group

1. Access Discourse: https://www.waze.com/discuss/
2. Go to Groups management: Hamburger menu on top right - Groups - New Group
   1. Name:
      1. No spaces
      2. Follow the agreed upon naming convention, which should reflect the type of community (beta / partners / editors / localization)
   2. Full name: Here you can use spaces

      Follow the same naming conventions

   3. Add owners and members
   4. Access:

      Staff doesn't recommend using the following setting, since it's hard to manage the incoming requests:

      Allow users to send membership requests to group owners (Requires publicly visible group).

   5. Waze External Controlled Groups Settings:

      Only staff should apply this setting. This adds more options to group management, like the option to direct a user to a specific topic, like a welcome topic, after they join the group. If you want it for your group and you're not a staff member, please reach out to a staff member for help. Here's more info for staff (doc access only for corp users).

   6. Access: Choose the right access type for your group.
   7. Want users to be able to choose the group as their Primary and show its Flair next to their posts? (Only one flair is shown per user)
      1. Mark the group as Primary: Effects - Automatically set as primary group
      2. Under Visibility: Allow members to see the group and its members:
         1. Who can see this group? Group owners, members and moderators
         2. Who can see this group's members? Group owners, members and moderators
   8. Posting: Respect group members and choose Only moderators and Admins
   9. Who can message this group? We disabled DMs on Discuss, to enable Waze Chat, so this setting will not reflect anywhere.
   10. Notification: Normal is a good setting, not an aggressive one.

       HIT Create

Invite / Add users to group

Once a group is created, you'll see 2 buttons in the Members tab:

• Add Users - to add users who are already on Waze Discuss directly to the group.
• Invite - this will generate a Join link you can share with anyone.