Almost ready to launch

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Hello,

I’m not sure if this belongs here or in support.

I’ve spent the better part of the week putting together my new forum. It’s a forum for woodwind musicians. Though there are some existing juggernauts, they are running on much older platforms. I’m excited, though I’ve never moderated a community.

Through the process, a couple of questions have popped up. Ones where I think I know the answer, but others where I’m not sure if I did something correct or not.

  • I’d like for this forum to be no politics. I assume I should add that to my TOS. In addition, I’d also like to add no selling (except ebay). I would like to add selling at some point using the trust system (sellers must be level 2, level 0 cannot view), I’d like to focus on building the community before having to manage that.

  • I’d also like to add a spot on how people can support the forum, I assume edit the FAQ. Basically explain the best way is to participate, don’t block the ads (that I hope to have), and also put a couple affiliate links.

Again, these are things I’m assuming are kosher, I’m just making sure that’s how you do them.

  • Adsense
    I can’t seem to get it going. I know they want the code pasted in between <head/head> tags, but as I don’t see a place to do that, I just put the pub-number in the plugin. At first I was rejected, but I think that was because I was kept the site as login required and adsense said I needed content. I have since opened it up and seeded a few topics and am awaiting approval.

  • Tagging
    One set of categories (Double Reeds), I have set to require a tag, since I decided against making separate categories (until community requires it). That seems to not be working, unless as an admin I am not required to follow that rule

    Parent Tags
    In trying to have a tag group work with a parent group, I’m getting the message you can only select 1 item, even though it looks like I can have more than 1 parent tag. I would like to have a manufacturer tag group be visible after selecting the instrument, but all instrument makers make different instruments. So I need to know if this isn’t possible at the moment to either have multiple parent tags, or have the parent tag be a tag group.

I think that’s all for now, and I think I’m pretty much ready to go. My plan is to soft launch, inviting friends to kick the tires a bit and then go a bit wider on the socials. If anyone wants to take a quick look and have anything constructive to offer, I’m all ears.

EDIT: I just found these steps for getting adsense working. I imagine that will work.

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A forum for woodwind musicians sounds like a great idea. I imagine there are some difficulties with being a wind musician with the current issues around covid.

For the problem you’re having with setting up Adsense, can you try following this guide to see if that solves the issue: Official Advertising / Ad Plugin for Discourse? The guide was recently updated. Let us know if you run into any problems with it.

You are correct that admin users can bypass a category’s tagging restrictions. If you’d like to get a sense of how your site works for non-admin users, try creating a second non-admin account for yourself and use that account for testing.

I’m going to move your topic to our support category. I think it belongs there. If you don’t get an answer to your question about parent tags, I’ll have a look at it later today.

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Thanks for the reply.

For the Adsense, I’m not really past Google’s step 1 (get approved), and it’s not listed on that guide what to do with the code they give you. But the second post I found explains how to add the code, and I see it View Source, so I think it’s just a matter of time. I do see the part at the end about Content Security, and will check that if I have issues once I get past step 1.

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Sounds like you are thinking ahead, which is already a solid sign that your community will be a success! As far as our advice, be sure you’ve read

and

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Well :rage:. Google found their code, but after waiting days rejected my AdSense app, with very vague information. Probably because nothing is up yet. But still I was hoping to launch with ads, so people only what to expect. I’m guessing Amazon affiliate ads are my next best option until the community grows. Unless some one here has other ideas.

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Unless you have some secret recipe for instant growth don’t waste time trying to monetize your content from the outset.

Focus on building and launching a great community

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Thanks. I thought it would be easier. I’ve seen Adsense on other extremely niche Discourse forums that get very little engagement.