hello, hello! today marks the beginning of phase one of our transition to discourse being our main communication hub. it’s so nice to see all of you here, and as folks begin to sign up, i hope you find that there’s some awesome quality-of-life improvements as well as better organization for more conversation!
if discourse feels a bit overwhelming right now, check out our discourse 101 guide on the website. it’s meant to give you a good start, but ultimately, you learn by doing—participating in the community through the forums and chat channels is the best way to learn the platform.
the first thing to note is that we have new community guidelines! these are helpful ways that we navigate through common online community issues that may come up and show how we operate a bit differently. even if you’ve been in the community since the beginning, it’s worth taking a look and understanding the type of culture we want to cultivate on discourse.
don’t hesitate to jump in and start topics about anything under our categories! @baristas will be around to help move topics, modify/add tags, and help with this transition period, so don’t be afraid to make a mistake. our @testers have been so kind to get acquainted with the platform and help us build out improvements, so they will likely have some answers to questions you might have! (thank you so much to them!)
if you have any questions, feel free to jump into the coffee bar chat channel, accessible from the chat channels navigation item in the menu.
thank you all for everything! here’s to expanding our horizons! 
thank you to the baristas and other testers for gettin’ this thang up and running!
