I’ve created a new category ‘Introductions’. This is a place where newcomers and existing members can say a little about themselves and their interests and specializations. Since we are a small, dedicated, and highly knowledgeable community I thought it would be nice for us to get to know each other a little more.
It is absolutely not mandatory.
A small technical issue with this is that it is only available on the web interface. This is because topics started externally using email all go to the General category. The end user can’t choose a different category in email because that entails having a distinct address for every Discourse category, and that rapidly becomes unwieldy and confusing. I am always at pains to point out that the email interface does not and cannot provide the full Discourse experience, and that the web interface is pretty good, even if you only want to use it occasionally.