# Discourse? What the hell is this? **URL:** \ **Category:** meta\ **Created:** [May 29, 2013, 6:56pm UTC](https://cog.discourse.group/t/discourse-what-the-hell-is-this/20 "2013-05-29T18:56:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lee\_Ars](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/cog.discourse.group/lee_ars/32/2338_2.png) [@Lee\_Ars](https://cog.discourse.group/u/Lee_Ars)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2013, 6:56pm UTC](https://cog.discourse.group/t/discourse-what-the-hell-is-this/20/1 "2013-05-29T18:56:09Z")
Discourse is a new [forum application](http://www.discourse.org/), still very much in beta. It’s written in Ruby, unlike Vanilla and phpBB, and it’s a ground-up take on how discussion forums should work. I’ve set up this small test forum so I can get some exposure to how Discourse operates with a small amount of user-generated content in it, and also to test the production readiness of my setup. ---
**Author:** ![Lee\_Ars](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/cog.discourse.group/lee_ars/32/2338_2.png) [@Lee\_Ars](https://cog.discourse.group/u/Lee_Ars)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2013, 7:08pm UTC](https://cog.discourse.group/t/discourse-what-the-hell-is-this/20/4 "2013-05-29T19:08:57Z")
To discuss Discourse, check out the [meta](http://discourse.bigdinosaur.org/category/meta) category. I’ve got [a topic](http://discourse.bigdinosaur.org/t/wow-this-is-different-categories-topics-what/23) already started, which should show up as a link to the side of this message. Cool! ---
**Author:** ![Lee\_Ars](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/cog.discourse.group/lee_ars/32/2338_2.png) [@Lee\_Ars](https://cog.discourse.group/u/Lee_Ars)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2013, 8:48pm UTC](https://cog.discourse.group/t/discourse-what-the-hell-is-this/20/5 "2013-05-29T20:48:31Z")