> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.orbit.devotel.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Run a Public Community Q&A Forum

> Enable the hosted peer-to-peer community board, wire its unauthenticated endpoints into your CX stack, let visitors ask and answer each other, and deflect support tickets before they reach your inbox.

# Run a Public Community Q\&A Forum

Devotel Orbit hosts a peer-to-peer community board for your workspace: your
end users post questions, answer each other, and vote on the best answers —
crowdsourced self-service that resolves issues publicly instead of burning a
ticket. Because every route is unauthenticated, signed-out visitors can read
and participate without an account, and each resolved thread stays searchable
for the next visitor who hits the same problem.

The endpoint paths below are relative. Send them against
`https://api.orbit.devotel.io/api/v1`.

## Community vs ideas board — pick the right surface

Orbit ships two anonymous public-feedback surfaces. They serve different
jobs:

|              | Community Q\&A (this guide)                           | Ideas board                                                      |
| ------------ | ----------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Purpose      | Peer support — visitors answer each other's questions | Feature requests — visitors submit and prioritize product ideas  |
| Thread shape | Question → answers, one answer can be marked accepted | Idea → comments, lifecycle runs under review → planned → shipped |
| Vote meaning | "This answer helped me"                               | "I want this feature"                                            |
| Enable flag  | `settings.community.enabled`                          | `settings.ideas.enabled`                                         |
| API base     | `/public/community`                                   | `/public/ideas`                                                  |

Point "how do I…" traffic at the community board and "I wish the product
could…" traffic at the ideas board. Both solve the same underlying volume
problem: fewer tickets in your inbox. The two public bases are described in
the [Public API reference](/api-reference/endpoints/public).

## 1. Enable the board

The community is opt-in per workspace. Until you flip it on, the public
endpoints answer nothing. Enable it by setting
`settings.community.enabled = true` on your organization settings — the same
workspace-level settings block that holds the parallel
`settings.ideas.enabled` flag (dashboard **Settings → Organization**, or the
organizations API). Storage is provisioned on first use: the board's tables
are created lazy per tenant, so there is nothing to migrate and nothing to
clean up if you turn the feature off again.

## 2. Scope every request to your tenant

Every request carries your workspace slug in the `?org=<slug>` query
parameter — the same tenant-scoping contract the
[hosted help center](/guides/help-center-portal) uses. The value is your
organization url slug (lowercase letters, digits, hyphens).

If you serve a custom help domain, `?org=` keeps the tenant scope uniform
across `orbit.devotel.io` and your own domain, exactly as with the help
center.

## 3. Anonymous-visitor posture

The board answers only anonymous traffic; no API key or session is accepted.
To keep that posture safe, the gate collapses two failure modes into one:
an unknown organization slug and an organization that has not enabled the
community both return the identical **404**. A probe cannot enumerate which
tenants exist or which of them turned the feature on. Anything other than
404 means the org resolved and the flag is set.

## 4. Browse and post

All paths below sit under `/api/v1/public/community`.

### List questions (GET /community/questions)

```bash theme={null}
# sort: recent (default) | top | unanswered
curl "https://api.orbit.devotel.io/api/v1/public/community/questions?org=acme&sort=unanswered"
```

The `unanswered` sort narrows to questions with zero answers — the queue
your support team should work first. The `top` sort ranks by vote count.
Add `&q=<term>` for substring search over titles and bodies, and
`&limit=` / `&offset=` (cap 50 per page) to paginate. Each item returns
`id`, `title`, an `excerpt` of the body, `author_name`, and the
`vote_count` / `answer_count` / `view_count` counters.

### Read a thread (GET /community/questions/:id)

```bash theme={null}
curl "https://api.orbit.devotel.io/api/v1/public/community/questions/cq_8fb2d1b7c00c4ec9a1d3f5e7b9c1d36e?org=acme"
```

The response returns the full question body plus its published answers,
ordered so an accepted answer surfaces first, then by votes. Each read bumps
the question's `view_count`.

### Ask a question (POST /community/questions)

```bash theme={null}
curl -X POST "https://api.orbit.devotel.io/api/v1/public/community/questions" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "org": "acme",
    "title": "Webhook retries on 5xx — what is the backoff?",
    "body": "We are seeing retries after our endpoint returns 500 and need the exact schedule.",
    "author_name": "Rita M.",
    "email": "rita@example.com"
  }'
```

A new question is visible to everyone immediately (`201` with the `cq_…`
id). Validation is fielded at the boundary: a title under 8 characters or a
body under 15 returns `400` with per-field issues in the error envelope.

### Post an answer (POST /community/questions/:id/answers)

```bash theme={null}
curl -X POST "https://api.orbit.devotel.io/api/v1/public/community/questions/cq_8fb2d1b7c00c4ec9a1d3f5e7b9c1d36e/answers" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "org": "acme",
    "body": "Five attempts with capped exponential backoff — the full schedule is in the webhook docs.",
    "author_name": "Devotel Orbit Support",
    "email": "support@devotel.io"
  }'
```

Answering a deleted or never-published question returns the same 404 as an
unknown org — visitors cannot probe which threads exist.

### Vote (POST /community/questions/:id/vote, POST /community/answers/:id/vote)

```bash theme={null}
curl -X POST "https://api.orbit.devotel.io/api/v1/public/community/answers/ca_91a2b3c4d5e6f7a8b9c0d1e2f3a4b5c6/vote?org=acme"
```

One vote per visitor per target: the voter's IP is hashed per target and
de-duplicated through that hash, so a repeat call is a no-op that returns
`{ voted: false, vote_count }` with the current count. Question votes and
answer votes use the same mechanism.

## 5. Moderation

The public surface reads only published content; a hidden thread or answer
never appears in browse, search, or thread responses. Until the tenant-side
moderator console ships (reserved for the next iteration — the `hidden`
marker is already wired invisibly), keep these operator practices:

* Answer publicly, do not ticket. When a commons question of the form
  "which plan includes X" lands, post the answer as an answer on the
  thread — every future visitor resolves it without opening your queue.
* Seed the knowledge base. A question that recurs belongs in a published
  help-center article, and the article URL belongs in the thread answer.
* Mark accepted answers once the console ships; the detail endpoint already
  ranks an accepted answer first when the flag is set.

## 6. Abuse posture

The public routes are unauthenticated, so the surface relies on server-side
limits and pseudonymised tracking rather than writer identity:

* **Rate limits per IP** — reads at 120/min, votes at 30/min, and posts
  (questions + answers) at 5/min. A `429` means your embed is degrading or
  one visitor is scripting the board.
* **HMAC-hashed identifiers** — the author email and the visitor IP are
  stored only as irreversible hashes, computed with a server-held key. The
  hashes exist for abuse tracing and vote de-duplication; raw IPs and raw
  emails never persist.
* **Content length caps** — titles cap at 200 characters, bodies at 10,000.
  An oversized write returns `400` before it is stored.
* **Opt-in discovery** — the 404-collapse described above denies tenant
  enumeration as well.

## Related surfaces

The community board is one of three self-service surfaces you can wire into
your CX stack; pick per intent:

* [Brand and Launch Your Hosted Help Center](/guides/help-center-portal) —
  operator-curated articles with a visitor ticket form.
* [Run a Public Idea Board and Roadmap](/guides/ideas-feature-request-portal)
  — visitor-submitted feature requests with a published roadmap.
* [Public API reference](/api-reference/endpoints/public) — field-level
  endpoint coverage of `/public/community` and its siblings.

For feature requests, set up the [ideas board](/guides/ideas-feature-request-portal)
(enable `settings.ideas.enabled`); that guide covers the browse, vote,
comment, and roadmap endpoints.