Hi Jay
I do not have any grades etc.
However, since the subject matter that I teach is so vast, I needed something that would allow me to update the content and add new content very quickly + encourage interaction.
And discourse does both very well. I even use it as my blog, because I can simply copy past the edited blog post from Google Docs without doing much formatting in Discourse.
It has taken a year, but only now Google has started showing my discourse pages (public) in search results.
But the 2 biggest challenges that I had to overcome were:
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Integration with my existing checkout service ThriveCart. So, even if I sold a subscription, it would automatically grant and revoke access + TC ingrates with “n” number of other services in backend. Which is what you initially worked on via Zapier for me. But it is cumbersome and, quite honestly, only useful if you have 1 product/course. The more products you have the more complicated it becomes and starts to fall apart. So I just got someone to build a custom portal for me as I have apps and Google Sheet add-ons that I need to give people access to as well.
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Organising lessons in chronological order. Which is what I recently figured out how to do. I just have to plan them and even if I did not plan them I can change their published date and organise them that way.
I do not use any badges or grading system so I cannot comment about their use.