I’m just getting started with Discourse and am looking for a comprehensive guide on how to configure/setup and administer our instance. There are some rather confusing/odd items that I’m not finding information about. Specifically, with the "Calendar and Events” plugin, the instructions are to add a calendar by making a post with codes in it. First of all, this does not seem to work, and, second, I have yet to find general information about how/why to use codes in posts. Beyond those specifics, I’m looking to understand the components, features, functions, and overall structure of Discourse, basically all of the stuff a Discourse admin needs to be aware of and deal with. Is there such a guide? Where can I find it? Is there a guide for troubleshooting process for issues like the Calendar and Events plugin instructions not working? Thanks!
Newbie question: Is there a comprehensive guide to configuring and administering Discourse instance?
Checkout the Documentation & #community-wiki categories
As for clarity what issues or problems are you having?
It’s often helpful to visit https://ask.discourse.com/ with your questions.
“cleaning”? I’m not sure what you mean. The problem I’m having with the Calendar plugin is that I configured the plugin with the category ID and entered the codes in a category post, as instructed, but the calendar does not appear… just the codes. I’m not sure exactly how the codes work but I presume they are interpreted by the app and not displayed, which is not happening. So, I’m looking for more details and general information about codes and how they work.
Does this only work for topics, not entire categories? 
Yeah, the Categories calendars are a whole different thing, and it is governed by a site setting where you pop in the Category.
Somewhat confusingly there is also a site-wide upcoming events calendar.
Sorry android typo. Should have been “clarity”