By default you get the same standard generic "penciled in" Discourse logo everyone gets. That's not cool. You know what's cool? Your own logos and favicons. Look for the [**Assets for the forum design**](/t/assets-for-the-forum-design/5) topic. Upload your logos and favicon to that topic. (Note that you may need to edit the `authorized_extensions` setting to upload certain filetypes.)
Discourse works for both fully public discussion areas, and private ones that require explicit approval of every user. However, the defaults assume you want a public discussion area.
If you want a more private forum, be sure to check out these settings:
By default, people can log in here with local accounts, Google, or Yahoo. Some common forms of login require a bit of additional configuration: …
Don't create too many categories initially, as it may overwhelm your audience. You can always add more later, and easily recategorize topics as they emerge.
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 make it a good one!
Image uploads should work fine out of the box stored locally. You can also can configure it so that images users upload go to Amazon S3 by [following this howto](http://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-set-up-image-uploads-to-s3/7229).
Attaching file types other than images to posts is also supported, read [the announcement](http://meta.discourse.org/t/new-attachments/8609) for details.
Discourse relies heavily on emails to notify people about conversations happening on the forum. 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>.
Did it work? Great! **Read this test email closely**, it has critical email deliverability tips. If you didn't get the test email, your users may not be getting any email notifications, either.
Also, achieving proper email deliverability can be hard. We strongly recommend something like [Mandrill](http://mandrill.com), [MailGun](http://www.mailgun.com/), or [MailJet](http://www.mailjet.com/), which solve email for you with virtually no effort, and offer generous free plans that works fine for small forums.
If you want to enable replying to topics via email, see the email settings section, specifically `reply_by_email_address`. This may require some mail server configuration.
One of the default topics you get is [Welcome to Discourse](/t/welcome-to-discourse). This topic will appear on the homepage for all new users. Your welcome topic is hugely important – it tells visitors
Edit this topic and write a **brief introduction for your forum** that explains what the heck is going on here. Don't write a novel because nobody will read it. What is the "elevator pitch" for your forum? How would you describe this forum to a stranger on an elevator when you have about 1 minute to talk?
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).
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":
- If your forum is expected to grow at all, be sure you have at least 2 GB of memory available to your Discourse instance. You might be able to squeak by with less, but we don't recommend it, unless you are an expert.
- 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 can officially support. That will guarantee you have the correct version of Ruby 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 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 will be continually improving 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).
