In a discussion about improving onboarding for new users, ganncamp observes that newest users (especially TL0) tend to be least satisfied, often posting vague or unhelpful questions without context — suggesting they may not be reading existing guidance like FAQs or welcome emails. To address this, JammyDodger recommends using Discourse’s built-in education.new-reply and education.new-topic popups, which can be customized and triggered based on user post count. ganncamp enthusiastically agrees, but later returns with follow-up questions 4: whether the two education messages are controlled by one setting (and if so, whether replying before creating a topic skips the topic guidance), whether replies to Discobot count toward triggering the messages, if emojis are allowed (no preview available), and whether the reply education shows when replying to one’s own thread. JammyDodger clarifies: the messages work independently despite sharing one setting threshold; replies to Discobot don’t count; emojis are supported; the reply message does appear in OP replies; and it also triggers in private message replies — a consideration for user behavior timing. The thread suggests refining educational popups as a targeted, in-context way to guide new users toward better posting habits.
I suspect it’s because they’re the ones who toss out a cryptic:
Title: [error message]
Body: Please do the needful
And assume we’re going to wipe their noses with nothing to go on. And then get frustrated when they don’t get answers right away. Or when the responses are “Care to share what you’ve tried and what the result was?”
I know we have the FAQ and the welcome email &etc. Clearly they’re not reading them (or maybe those things are ineffective…? How would I tell if a user read them & still made these mistakes?)
So I’m wondering if there’s a way to target brand new users (maybe even all TL0) with special guidance in the post-writing window.
There’s the educate until posts popups that you could repurpose? You can change how many times they show up, and customise the text to suit your needs too:
So if I make 2 replies before I ever create a new topic, I’ll never see the educational message about creating topics?
And do posts in conversation with Discobot count toward this?
P.S.
Can I use emojis? There’s no preview…
Does the education.new-reply show up when the user is replying in his/her own thread? I.e. user is OP, has gotten a reply from someone and is now responding to the reply. Does s/he/they see the education message? (It matters because what I say in it could change…)
There is currently only one site setting to set the threshold for both but they do work independently, so you get the topic message for your first two topics as well as the post message for your first two posts.
Replies to Discobot don’t trigger the message
You can use emojis
The education.new-reply does show up when you’re replying to your own topic
You do get the post message for a PM reply as well as a regular topic reply, so that may be something to be aware of depending on when your users start messaging.