The Ushahidi forums are becoming the place to go for help, insight and information on Ushahidi.

Recently, we had a question asking about how to add user authentication. After reading my response I realize that my answer on “user levels” might not be what the questioner is looking for… This is the beauty of a forum though, because it means we can communicate in a way that isn’t highly efficient, but does allow for interaction and clarification to take place over time.

Over the past couple months, the activity has started to increase. We’ve got special areas for:

• Bugs and trouble shooting
• Best practices & tips
• Ushahidi in action
• Feature requests
• Ushahidi API
• Everything else

What we’re hoping we see more of is some of the non-technical users sharing their uses and lessons learned. We’ve come to realize, from our own first deployment in Kenya, that the technical part might be a bit of a headache to get going in the beginning, but that it really doesn’t compare to the amount of work and focus it takes to run a successful marketing campaign so that people know your site is out there.

The forums are also becoming the place to go for connecting with other users around the world. It’s a great place to meet others who are part of the extended community who can help with deployments, translations and customizations.

A lot of people in the community are active on the forums. If you’ve got a question, want to show off your latest deployment of Ushahidi, or are troubleshooting a difficult installation issue, we hope you do it there.

Give it a try and see what you find out!