# Doing an AMA using Discourse **URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/doing-an-ama-using-discourse/12103 **Category:** Community Building **Created:** [January 21, 2014, 6:23pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/doing-an-ama-using-discourse/12103 "2014-01-21T18:23:40Z") **Posts on this page:** 1 **Showing post:** 28
### Author: ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/codinghorror/32/110067_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror) #### Post date: [April 8, 2019, 10:14pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/doing-an-ama-using-discourse/12103/28 "2019-04-08T22:14:38Z")
> [@mcwumbly](#): > > Curious to hear if anyone has any more real-world experience to share with attempting to do AMA-style discussions using Discourse. Yes, I did one here at [https://community.hackernoon.com/t/x/1800](https://community.hackernoon.com/t/x/1800) and I have three sets of advice depending on who is asking: ### For participants Post the following guidelines early in the topic (either in the first post or the first reply) for people to follow: * * * - Please only ask one question by replying to this topic a single time, using the blue Reply button [at the bottom](https://community.hackernoon.com/t/x/1800/last). It’s also helpful to scroll to the bottom while 📖 reading the topic to make sure nobody else has asked the same question first, _before_ you ask… _right?_ 👌 - Please don’t ask more than one question, so everyone gets a chance 😉 - Please do not reply to anyone else’s post. The only purpose of replies here in this topic is to ask the author _one_ question. If you’d like to discuss a related topic in more detail, create a new topic. Posts not following these guidelines may be removed by moderators to keep the Q&A flowing smoothly. Thank you! * * * Two notes: 1. The link to “the bottom” is in the form 2. The date and time of the Q&A can be specified in the first post using our automagic awesome localized-automatically date feature that @j.jaffeux created! ### For answerers / authors - Make sure you’ve created your account on the site in advance of the Q&A as you’ll need it! - The **answerer should create the topic** (or the hosts can create it for them, and force ownership to the answerer via the wrench) so they get properly notified about replies to their topic. - ⚠ **MAKE SURE THE ANSWERER KNOWS TO QUOTE IN EVERY REPLY!** This is critical. They have to quote the post they are replying to so people can see what they’re replying to and the conversation is properly connected. I cannot emphasize enough how critical this is.. really. If this doesn’t get done, your Q&A / AMA is gonna suuuuuck real hard for readers. Basically don’t even bother if you can’t guarantee this part. - It is a bit of an advanced thing but some people don’t read the whole Q&A topic (although we did ask them to) and subsequently asked duplicate questions. In those cases I suggest editing quotes from those posts into existing answers so the answer then properly covers both questions. Users get notified when you quote them so this works, even when editing after the fact. ### For hosts - Either grant the answerer moderator status temporarily, or have a moderator during the Q&A on hand to moderate anything weird that happens in the Q&A topic such as off-topic, angry, or rant-y posts. - Make sure the answerer has their account created and ready to go, and granted trust level 2 or higher so it avoids new user restrictions when answering! - Close the topic after the Q&A is complete, or set a topic timer to do it automatically. --- _[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/doing-an-ama-using-discourse/12103)._