I wanted to start a discussion today that is both a fun trip down memory lane and a guiding light for those who are just starting out with their very first Discourse instance.
Imagine you could send a single message back in time to your past self, who just logged into their Discourse site as an admin for the very first time, opened the dashboard, and was staring at hundreds of settings with a mix of excitement and absolute panic.
What is the one thing you would tell yourself from the future, based on everything you know now? If youโd like, feel free to share the story behind it!
To start things off, here is what I would tell my beginner self:
โGive yourself time to truly understand the system, and donโt be afraid to ask questions. Learning, experimenting, and seeking help are the things that will allow you to grow and build something great in the future.โ
Follow the KISS principle, and add features only if they are needed. Never just because a feature might be cool or potentially useful sometime in the future.
โTake your time to learn the basics! Itโs truly not that hard and you have free timeโ
(my young self wonโt listen)
โEach customization you do will break in the future at some point. You wonโt want to maintain all the crappy stuff youโre so eager to addโ
(young self might listen to this; I doubt it however)
โNo, regardless of your feelings, Discourse is not the best software for some communitiesโ
(young self refuses to believe future self)
โShare your opinions and ideas about the software: even a single voice can lead to positive software changesโฆโ
(young self will do that anyway, a lot, on meta, from outside and from inside)
โโฆBut donโt be overconfident that the ideas you come up with are the greatest that have ever existedโ
(young self tells future self: โbut you still areโ)
โYouโll experience a pandemic, generative AI will completely reshape how many things work on the Internet and be a catastrophic environmental failure, also youโll have a 43ยฐC summer in several yearsโ
Too many times thinking that I should be able to do something and then find I donโt understand what was biting off. Then spending way more time and resources on the project than I intended. Applies to most area, spend time and resources on your value add, not something you can hire an expert for.
