# Introductie / Welkom Onderwerp -- voorbeelden?
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/introduction-welcome-topic-examples/379776
**Category:** Community Building
**Tags:** community-strategy
**Created:** [22 augustus 2025 om 00:47 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/introduction-welcome-topic-examples/379776 "2025-08-22T00:47:43Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@ToddZ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ToddZ)
#### Post date: [22 augustus 2025 om 00:47 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/introduction-welcome-topic-examples/379776/1 "2025-08-22T00:47:43Z")
Ik ben benieuwd hoe goed een "Stel jezelf voor" _onderwerp_ werkt. Ik zou geneigd zijn geweest om een categorie of subcategorie te maken – maar ik zie aanbevelingen om er gewoon een doorlopend onderwerp van te maken.
Ik zou graag wat voorbeelden willen zien van "Stel jezelf voor" onderwerpthreads in het wild.
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### Author:  [@Bas](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Bas)
#### Post date: [22 augustus 2025 om 07:33 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/introduction-welcome-topic-examples/379776/2 "2025-08-22T07:33:21Z")
It varies massively and is very dependent on the type of community and the existing ethos.
That said, as with a lot of community initiatives: just try it 🙂
The best way that I’ve seen them work is if the community manager actively invites people into the community to introduce themselves. This is one of those repetitive tasks that you _shouldn’t_ automate, give it some flair, hook into someone’s name or bio or whatever. If it’s holiday season make it a rhyme etc.
They can be a great tool to get people to participate and step out of the lurker or one-time-participant vibe.
They can also fizzle and not work at all, which you’ll know after a few tries.
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### Author:  [@ToddZ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ToddZ)
#### Post date: [22 augustus 2025 om 07:56 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/introduction-welcome-topic-examples/379776/3 "2025-08-22T07:56:16Z")
Bedankt Bas – ik ben me aan het voorbereiden om het te proberen. Waar ik nog steeds over twijfel, is hoe het eruitziet als er een “megathread” met één onderwerp is voor introducties – in tegenstelling tot het creëren van een categorie voor afzonderlijke introductieonderwerpen.
Met één onderwerp stel ik me voor dat antwoorden en zijpaden die verband houden met oudere introducties, inline komen te staan met nieuwe introducties en een beetje rommelig worden. Maar… misschien is dat meestal geen probleem. Ik ben er nog nooit tegengekomen, dus ik hoop er op zijn minst een paar te zien.
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### Author:  [@Bas](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Bas)
#### Post date: [22 augustus 2025 om 08:14 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/introduction-welcome-topic-examples/379776/4 "2025-08-22T08:14:25Z")
Start with a simple topic first, if it becomes so successful that you should’ve used a category instead.. that’s a good problem to have 🤗
Remember: we community managers [always use too many categories](https://meta.discourse.org/t/do-users-properly-use-categories/345424/6).. [always](https://meta.discourse.org/t/streamlining-forum-organization-with-third-level-sub-categories/344326/8)
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### Author:  [@LotusJeff](https://meta.discourse.org/u/LotusJeff)
#### Post date: [24 augustus 2025 om 02:50 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/introduction-welcome-topic-examples/379776/5 "2025-08-24T02:50:31Z")
We have used an “introduce Yourself’ category for years. We get about 1 introduction for about every 10 new members. You can check it out at [Introduce Yourself Here](https://forums.lotuselan.net/c/introduce-yourself-here/21).
We manually review every new members posts and it is a great way to handle questionable first post. When we get a questionable first post, we request an intro post.
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### Author:  [@Canapin](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Canapin)
#### Post date: [24 augustus 2025 om 12:53 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/introduction-welcome-topic-examples/379776/6 "2025-08-24T12:53:05Z")
> [@Bas](#):
>
> It varies massively and is very dependent on the type of community and the existing ethos.
+1
* * *
On my forum(s) I have a dedicated category for newcomers to introduce themselves, like this one:
> **[Introduce Yourself](https://unicyclist.com/c/introduce-yourself/37)**
>
> Tell us a bit about yourself and let’s know each other!
Trust level 0 users see a banner on the homepage that prompts them to post in this category, though it is not mandatory.
A lot of forums make an introduction step mandatory, and personally, I don’t really like it.
I usually don’t like to introduce myself, and I won’t force “my” users to do so.
When creating a topic in this category, the template has 3 basic questions that users can start from.
Also, and I think it is an important part of this category, these topics are automatically closed after 1 month, else they sometimes drift into endless updates about some journey or infinite discussions, and there are more proper categories for this.
A good example of this phenomenon would be this introduction which quickly gained 80 replies in one month:
> **[Absolute beginner at 68 years old](https://unicyclist.com/t/absolute-beginner-at-68-years-old/291071?u=canapin)**
>
> What’s your name? Brian Where do you come from? San Diego, California What is your experience of unicycling? My first day on a unicycle dates back to (checks calendar) yesterday. This is the hardest physical activity/sport I’ve tried to pick up...
I didn’t try a single topic for all introductions, as I find introducing ourselves in this context a bit meaningless, and less regular users are prone to welcoming newcomers in this kind of topic. At least I’m confident it would be like this in my communities. It’s also based on what I’ve seen here and there on other forums.
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### Author:  [@David\_Ghost](https://meta.discourse.org/u/David_Ghost)
#### Post date: [24 augustus 2025 om 13:11 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/introduction-welcome-topic-examples/379776/7 "2025-08-24T13:11:35Z")
Mooi werk. Ik vind het geweldig.
Momenteel gebruik ik een automatisering om een mp (en e-mail) te sturen waarin ik tl 0 gebruikers uitnodig om zich voor te stellen in een speciaal onderwerp. Maar het werkt niet. Ik zal mijn strategie veranderen.
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### Author:  [@ToddZ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ToddZ)
#### Post date: [27 augustus 2025 om 00:33 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/introduction-welcome-topic-examples/379776/8 "2025-08-27T00:33:12Z")
Thank you for the examples, LotusJeff and Canapin.
I notice in the category approach that people don’t always come up with a gripping topic title – but it looks like even the “Hello”, “Hi”, and “New Member” posts do get some attention.
> [@Canapin](#):
>
> I didn’t try a single topic for all introductions, as I find introducing ourselves in this context a bit meaningless, and less regular users are prone to welcoming newcomers in this kind of topic.
– Thanks for this input. I guess seeing the same “Introduce Yourself” topic reappearing over and over might not be especially compelling.
The other thing I notice is that these forums center on a shared interest/hobby involving common stages, and that invites encouragement and advice. I’m realizing that doesn’t really map to my Q&A forum, and introductions miiiight not end up adding much value in our context… 🤔
I can see how they’d be great for a forum about sharing ongoing personal experiences, though.
I appreciate all the comments!
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### Author:  [@Canapin](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Canapin)
#### Post date: [27 augustus 2025 om 10:46 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/introduction-welcome-topic-examples/379776/9 "2025-08-27T10:46:21Z")
> [@ToddZ](#):
>
> I notice in the category approach that people don’t always come up with a gripping topic title
I always fail to come up with a gripping topic title when I present myself in other forums, like many I think. 😄
> [@ToddZ](#):
>
> but it looks like even the “Hello”, “Hi”, and “New Member” posts do get some attention.
> [@ToddZ](#):
>
> The other thing I notice is that these forums center on a shared interest/hobby involving common stages, and that invites encouragement and advice. I’m realizing that doesn’t really map to my Q&A forum, and introductions miiiight not end up adding much value in our context… 🤔
Yeah you’re probably right. Like it wouldn’t add any value here on [meta.discourse.org](http://meta.discourse.org).
You can still try it and see how it goes, and stop the experiment if it doesn’t work.
Also when I started my forum (it was a migration) and created this category, very few people answered to introduction topics. They seem more likely to do so then, and I don’t know why. Maybe it just took time for habits to form.
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### Author:  [@stephtara](https://meta.discourse.org/u/stephtara)
#### Post date: [7 december 2025 om 06:59 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/introduction-welcome-topic-examples/379776/11 "2025-12-07T06:59:28Z")
> [@ToddZ](#):
>
> I’d love to see some examples of “Introduce yourself” topic threads in the wild.
Other context, but where my community currently is (Facebook… I’m preparing for us to jump ship and come over to Discourse) we have a mega “tell us about yourself” thread. We did it that way over there because Facebook doesn’t allow any kind of structure inside the group, all the posts are lumped up together, so having each person present themselves in a busy support forum means those presentations will get lost. They do usually introduce themselves in their first post, but the nice thing with the mega-thread is that you can hop on at any time and go and read all the presentations of various people you’ve been interacting with. We share the thread once a month in the group, in a post with no comments allowed, inviting people to go and add their presentation to the collection.
I was thinking of doing it differently on Discourse, but now I’ve seen this topic I’m second-guessing myself.
I think there is a difference between what people write depending on the context:
- I’ve just arrived and I’m going to tell all these strangers a bit about myself (and in my support group, people are not in a good emotional place when they arrive)
- I’ve been around here for a bit, made some friends, helped and been helped, and yeah, I’d love to know more about the people I connect with every day and them about me, so let me write up a proper bio/life story for them!
In the case of my community, clearly the mega-thread belongs to the second scenario. People love it when it comes up and sometimes read through the whole hundreds of comment-bios in it 😅