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Jeff Atwood

Jeff Atwood

67 posts published

https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror

Sam Saffron and Sarah Hawk named Discourse Co-CEOs

If I’ve learned anything about community in the last 10 years working at Discourse, it is that all lasting community comes from a place of shared leadership, not merely by the people at the top, but including everyone who regularly participates. Everyone deserves a voice, and to be heard.

  • Jeff Atwood
Jeff Atwood Jan 31, 2023 • 2 min read
updates

Discourse 2.8 Released!

Today we release Discourse 2.8, building on Discourse 2.7 [https://civilized-discourse-construction-kit-inc.ghost.io/2021/05/discourse-2-7-released/] from May 2021. For post 2.0 releases we’ve chosen a new set of codenames [https://meta.discourse.org/t/codenames-for-post-2-0-discourse-releases/89212] based on the history of human communication; this release

  • Jeff Atwood
Jeff Atwood Jan 27, 2022 • 8 min read
updates

Discourse Announces $20m Series A Investment by Pace Capital and First Round Capital

We're pleased to announce that Discourse has taken $20 million in Series A investment from Pace Capital, joined by our seed investors, First Round Capital. It's been quite a journey since our seed foundation in 2012 and the launch of Civilized Discourse Construction Kit, Incorporated. In

  • Jeff Atwood
Jeff Atwood Aug 27, 2021 • 2 min read
updates

Discourse 2.7 Released!

Today we release Discourse 2.7, building on Discourse 2.6 [https://civilized-discourse-construction-kit-inc.ghost.io/2020/11/discourse-2-6-released/] from last November. For post 2.0 releases we’ve chosen a new set of codenames [https://meta.discourse.org/t/codenames-for-post-2-0-discourse-releases/89212] based on the history of human communication; this release

  • Jeff Atwood
Jeff Atwood May 18, 2021 • 7 min read
updates

Discourse 2.6 released!

Today we release Discourse 2.6, building on Discourse 2.5 [https://civilized-discourse-construction-kit-inc.ghost.io/2020/06/discourse-2-5-released/] from June. For post 2.0 releases we've chosen a new set of codenames [https://meta.discourse.org/t/codenames-for-post-2-0-discourse-releases/89212] based on the history of human communication; this release

  • Jeff Atwood
Jeff Atwood Nov 30, 2020 • 5 min read
updates

Discourse 2.5 released!

Today we release Discourse 2.5, building on Discourse 2.4 [https://civilized-discourse-construction-kit-inc.ghost.io/2020/02/discourse-2-4-released/] from February. For post 2.0 releases we've chosen a new set of codenames [https://meta.discourse.org/t/codenames-for-post-2-0-discourse-releases/89212] based on the history of human communication; this release

  • Jeff Atwood
Jeff Atwood Jun 24, 2020 • 5 min read
updates

COVID-19 and Discourse

The world is in the midst of a global pandemic [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic]. I'm sure you've seen a lot of these messages, so we'll get right to the point. As a completely free open source tool

  • Jeff Atwood
Jeff Atwood Apr 2, 2020 • 1 min read
updates

Discourse 2.4 released!

Today we release Discourse 2.4, building on Discourse 2.3 [https://civilized-discourse-construction-kit-inc.ghost.io/2019/06/discourse-2-3-released/] from last year. For post 2.0 releases we've chosen a new set of codenames [https://meta.discourse.org/t/codenames-for-post-2-0-discourse-releases/89212] based on the history of human communication; this

  • Jeff Atwood
Jeff Atwood Feb 25, 2020 • 5 min read
updates

Presentations on Discourse

If you'd like a deeper dive into the philosophy of Discourse, the project -- what it is, what it set out to do, and why it exists -- I can recommend a few presentations and podcasts I've done over the years which go deeper on background

  • Jeff Atwood
Jeff Atwood Sep 15, 2019 • 1 min read
security

Slack Security Incident

From mid 2014 to January 2018, Discourse used Slack as an internal chat tool. In February 2015, Slack had a security incident [https://slackhq.com/march-2015-security-incident-and-the-launch-of-two-factor-authentication] , and notified any accounts of "suspicious activity": > As part of our investigation we detected suspicious activity affecting a very small number

  • Jeff Atwood
Jeff Atwood Sep 6, 2019 • 2 min read
updates

Discourse 2.3 released!

Today we release Discourse 2.3, building on Discourse 2.2 from February. For post 2.0 releases we've chosen a new set of codenames based on the history of human communication; this release is Vinca. Completely overhauled flag and review system Arguably the the biggest change in

  • Jeff Atwood
Jeff Atwood Jun 17, 2019 • 5 min read
updates

Discourse 2.2 released!

Today we release Discourse 2.2, building on Discourse 2.1 from September 2018. For post 2.0 releases we've chosen a new set of codenames based on the history of human communication; this release is La Pasiega. UI refinements For consistency with mobile and to free up

  • Jeff Atwood
Jeff Atwood Feb 1, 2019 • 6 min read
updates

Discourse 2.1 released!

Today we release Discourse 2.1, building on Discourse 2.0 from May. We've chosen a new set of codenames for releases starting with 2.1 that are based on the history of human communication. This release is Bhimbetka, and the next two will be La Pasiega and

  • Jeff Atwood
Jeff Atwood Sep 10, 2018 • 4 min read
culture

Launching a Successful Discourse Community

While we've offered general tips for building a Discourse community [https://civilized-discourse-construction-kit-inc.ghost.io/2014/08/building-a-discourse-community/] , we also get a lot of questions about what specifically you can do to help launch a successful Discourse community. What is the "elevator pitch" for your community? The

  • Jeff Atwood
Jeff Atwood Aug 6, 2018 • 3 min read
culture

Understanding Discourse Trust Levels

Originally published June 2018 by Jeff Atwood. Updated December 2025. 💡This post has remained one of our most-visited resources for good reason: trust levels form the foundation of how Discourse communities scale healthy participation. While the core philosophy stays constant, we've made improvements to how communities can apply

  • Jeff Atwood
Jeff Atwood Jun 25, 2018 • 9 min read
updates

Discourse 2.0 released!

We released Discourse 2.0 on May 31st, building on Discourse 1.9 from January. New Admin Dashboard We've completely redesigned the admin dashboard to show off your most relevant and essential community health metrics right at the top, as well as trending searches. 0:00/1× Shared

  • Jeff Atwood
Jeff Atwood May 31, 2018 • 5 min read
updates

Discourse 1.9 released!

We released Discourse 1.9 on January 3rd, building on Discourse 1.8 from last June. Show Who's Replying Discourse is all about replies being disconnected in time and space, but we agree that showing when people are actually replying to a topic is genuinely useful in a

  • Jeff Atwood
Jeff Atwood Jan 8, 2018 • 5 min read
updates

Discourse Gives Back 2017

We've had a fantastic year at Discourse, growing our team [https://civilized-discourse-construction-kit-inc.ghost.io/2017/11/discourse-team-grows-to-20/] to 20 21 people. (There's also something exciting and major happening early in 2018 that we've worked hard on for the last six months that we can&

  • Jeff Atwood
Jeff Atwood Dec 21, 2017 • 3 min read
updates

Who is Discobot?

As of Discourse 1.8, every new user who joins will get a welcome PM from discobot: Discobot is a natural extension of our original, static welcome PM. However, Discobot is much more than a greeter; it also offers to interactively "play" the Discourse game with each new

  • Jeff Atwood
Jeff Atwood Aug 29, 2017 • 3 min read
updates

Discourse 1.8 released!

We're thrilled to release Discourse 1.8 today, building on Discourse 1.7 from January. Narrative Welcome Bot Perhaps the biggest new feature in this release is our narrative welcome bot, which greets new users with a personal message and offers to interactively "play" the Discourse

  • Jeff Atwood
Jeff Atwood May 31, 2017 • 5 min read
updates

Discourse's Fourth Birthday

As of today*, it's been four years of Discourse! It feels like only only yesterday [https://blog.discourse.org/2013/02/the-discourse-team/] that we launched Discourse as an open source project. We've certainly been busy for the last four years: * 1 official non-beta release [https://blog.

  • Jeff Atwood
Jeff Atwood Feb 6, 2017 • 1 min read
updates

Discourse 1.7 released!

Today, after four months of work, we're proud to release Discourse 1.7. * Discourse 1.2 – Feb 2015 * Discourse 1.3 – June 2015 * Discourse 1.4 – September 2015 * Discourse 1.5 – April 2016 * Discourse 1.6 – August 2016 Official iOS and Android Apps Thanks to Sam Saffron, we

  • Jeff Atwood
Jeff Atwood Jan 6, 2017 • 7 min read
culture

Discourse New User Tips and Tricks

Originally published December 2016 by Jeff Atwood. Updated December 2025. 💡These practical techniques help community managers work smarter, not harder. Discourse has evolved significantly since this post was first published in 2016, adding new tools and capabilities that make many of these tasks even easier. This updated guide covers essential

  • Jeff Atwood
Jeff Atwood Dec 16, 2016 • 8 min read
updates

Discourse 1.6 Released!

We're thrilled to announce that today marks the release of Discourse 1.6! * Discourse 1.2 – Feb 2015 * Discourse 1.3 – June 2015 * Discourse 1.4 – September 2015 * Discourse 1.5 – April 2016 Enhanced Security Like any responsible open source project, we take security very seriously at Discourse.

  • Jeff Atwood
Jeff Atwood Aug 5, 2016 • 8 min read
coding

Beginner's Guide to Creating Discourse Plugins

Part of our important work with Rails Girls [http://railsgirls.com/] in 2014 and 2015 was not just to mentor and encourage new developers, but also evolve Discourse into a platform that's generally friendly and easy for developers to build on. We'll be working with the

  • Jeff Atwood
Jeff Atwood Apr 14, 2016 • 2 min read
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