As an admin you have total control over this Discourse instance — and with great power comes great responsibility. Exercise your admin superpowers via the admin dashboard at
You can also access it via the "hamburger" menu in the upper right. Admin functions are generally marked with the wrench :wrench: icon, so look for that.
Go to the [Required tab](/admin/site_settings/category/required) of the site settings and enter all the required basic items. **Until you set these required values, _your Discourse is broken!_**
By default you get the same standard generic "penciled in" Discourse logo everyone gets. Look for the [**assets for the forum design**](/t/assets-for-the-forum-design/5) topic; follow the instructions there to upload your logos to that topic, and then paste the uploaded image paths into the required logo settings.
It's lonely at the top. You may want to grant other users staff abilities – to do so click the admin button :wrench: on their user page, then look for the grant buttons.
If you only want some parts to be private, there is a built in Staff category, and you can create more private categories that are only visible to certain groups of users.
If you want to get extra-fancy you can also [set up single-sign on](https://meta.discourse.org/t/official-single-sign-on-for-discourse/13045), or even [build your own oAuth 2 login](https://meta.discourse.org/t/login-to-discourse-with-custom-oauth2-provider/14717).
Discourse relies heavily on email for signups and conversation notifications. **Test your email to make sure it is working!** Visit [the admin email settings](/admin/email), then enter an email address in the "email address to test" field and click <kbd>send test email</kbd>.
Email deliverability can be hard. We strongly recommend using dedicated email services like [Mandrill](http://mandrill.com), [MailGun](http://www.mailgun.com/), or [MailJet](http://www.mailjet.com/), which offer generous free plans that work fine for most communities.
One of the default topics is [Welcome to Discourse](/t/welcome/6). This topic is pinned globally, so it will appear on the homepage for all new users. Your welcome topic is important because it is the first thing you visitors will see:
- Where am I?
- Who is this discussion area for?
- What can I [find here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0VNHe5fq30)?
- Why should I visit here?
[Edit this welcome topic](/t/welcome/6) and write a **brief introduction to your community**. Think of it as your "elevator pitch" – how would you describe this site to a stranger on an elevator when you had about 1 minute to talk?
Pinning topics works a little differently in Discourse:
- Users can hide pins on topics once they have read them via the controls at the bottom of the topic, so they don't stay pinned forever for everyone.
- When you pin a topic, you can choose to pin it globally to all topic lists, or pin it only within its category.
Discourse is designed to offer safe defaults for communities, even if you set up the site and walk away from it forever. There is a [trust system in Discourse](https://meta.discourse.org/t/what-do-user-trust-levels-do/4924/2) where regular users automatically earn abilities to assist in governing the community as they participate over time.
All new users start out at trust level zero, in a trust sandbox with restrictions for their safety and everyone else's safety. **Trust level zero users _cannot_**…
- post more than 2 hyperlinks
- post any images or file attachments
- send private messages
- flag posts or topics
- have actual links in the "about me" field of their profile
There are also a lot of rate limits around how many actions new users can take. Of course, new users don't stay new users forever; reading a variety of topics is enough to [transition to trust level 1](https://meta.discourse.org/t/what-do-user-trust-levels-do/4924/2) in about 15 minutes.
- If you are pre-vetting users, or your site is private and you approve all new users manually, you can set everyone's `default trust level` to 1.
- You can individually adjust these conservative default new user restrictions. Search the settings for `newuser`. Two settings we see commonly adjusted are `newuser max images` and `newuser max replies per topic`.
**Don't create too many initial categories**, as you can overwhelm your audience. You can always add more categories later, and easily bulk recategorize topics any time. It's better to figure out organization as you go rather than assuming you'll get it all right from the beginning (hint: you won't).
To add a category, visit the [categories page](/categories), then click Create Category at the upper right. You can set security per-category so only certain groups of users can see topics in that category.
Every category has an initial "About the {foo} category" topic created alongside it. This topic will be pinned to the top of the category, and the description you enter here for the category will used in a bunch of places. So edit that first post and give your new category a good, clear description!
3.**Enable:** If you wish to have your styles and header take effect on the site, check the "Enable" checkbox, then click "Save". This is also known as "live reloading", which will cause your changes to take effect immediately.
4.**Preview:** If you wish to preview your changes before saving them, click the "preview" link at the bottom of the screen. Your changes will be applied to the site as they are currently saved in the "Customize" panel. If you aren't happy with your changes and wish to revert, simply click the "Undo Preview" link.
Here is some example HTML that would go into the "Header" section within "Customize":
Out of the box, Discourse defaults to [Creative Commons licensing](https://creativecommons.org/).
> Your users will always retain copyright on their posts, and will always grant the forum owner enough rights to include their content on the forum.
>
> Who is allowed to republish the content posted on this forum?
>
> 1. Only the author
> 2. Author and the owner of this forum
> 3. Anybody\*
Number 3 is the Discourse default – that's [Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/deed.en_US).
If that's not what you want, please see our [admin User Content Licensing](/admin/site_contents/tos_user_content_license) page for a brief form that will let you cut and paste your decision into section #3 of the [Terms of Service](/tos#3).
- 1GB of memory, with swap, is the absolute minimum required for a small Discourse community. If your community is expected to grow, you'll want more memory.
- Hopefully you are running [in our Docker container install](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/docs/INSTALL.md); it's the only one we officially support. That will guarantee easy updates, and all recommended optimizations from the Discourse team.
- To upgrade your instance, visit [/admin/docker](/admin/docker). Refresh the page a few times, and you will see an <kbd>upgrade</kbd> button appear. Press it! Then wait for the updating text at the bottom of the browser to know when you're done.
This guide is a [work in progress](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/docs/ADMIN-QUICK-START-GUIDE.md) and we hope to continually improve it with your feedback.
For more assistance on configuring and running your Discourse forum, see [the support category](http://meta.discourse.org/category/support) or [the hosting category](http://meta.discourse.org/category/hosting) on [meta.discourse.org](http://meta.discourse.org).
