Members & roles
Roles prevent two things: everyone being able to do everything — and nobody being able to do anything. A community has five of them.
The five roles
| Role | In short |
|---|---|
| Viewer | Reads the community and joins in the comments |
| Editor | Writes content — but does not moderate |
| Moderator | Moderates reports, comments and posts — but does not write |
| Admin | Editor and moderator together, plus design and team |
| Owner | Admin, plus handing over and deleting the community |
Editor and moderator are siblings, not steps: someone who writes doesn't have to be allowed to moderate, and someone who moderates doesn't have to be allowed to write. Only the admin unites both.
Who may do what
| Right | Viewer | Editor | Moderator | Admin | Owner |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Open the dashboard | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Write posts | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Edit pages | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Manage media | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Manage events | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Moderate comments | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Handle reports | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Moderate posts | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Manage courses | ✓ | ✓ | |||
| Manage activities | ✓ | ✓ | |||
| Design and branding | ✓ | ✓ | |||
| Manage the team | ✓ | ✓ | |||
| Hand over the community | ✓ | ||||
| Delete the community | ✓ |
What no role may do
Billing, plan and payment details belong to the owner alone: the Plan tab in the community settings appears only for them. Admin, moderator and editor manage content and team — never the contract. See Billing.
Likewise, instance-wide matters (system settings, user administration across all communities, logs) are reserved for platform operations and are not reachable for community roles.
How somebody becomes a member
Your community lives at yourname.pukalani.app. Whoever signs up there becomes
a member — signing in works with a code sent to the email address, no password
needed.
Whoever creates the community automatically gets the owner role.
Managing the team
Under Dashboard → Community settings → Members you do everything yourself — four actions:
| Action | What happens |
|---|---|
| Invite | Enter an email address and a role. The link is valid for 7 days. |
| Change role | Takes effect immediately. You cannot demote yourself. |
| Withdraw access | The person can no longer get in — posts and name stay. Coming back only works with a new invitation. |
| Transfer ownership | Makes somebody else the owner. A separate, rare step. |
By default the list shows the team (owner, admin, moderator, editor); one click shows all members.
Letting members invite
A community grows faster when the team isn't the only group that can bring people in. Under Dashboard → Community → General there is a switch for that: Members can invite.
While it is on, every member — a viewer included — may invite people, under clear limits:
| Rule | Why |
|---|---|
| Five invitations per week per member, rolling | Enough for genuine recommendations, too few for bulk mail |
| Always as a reader | Handing out roles stays a team decision — even if somebody tries to work around it |
| An invitation is spent when it is sent, not when it is accepted | Otherwise 500 never-accepted invitations would cost nothing, and that is exactly the abuse case |
The form states where you stand: 3 of 5 invitations left this week. Once the allowance is used up, it says that it resets in a few days.
Whoever's invitation is accepted earns the Promoter badge — and once the people they invited climb the trust levels, Campaigner and Champion follow.
What to bear in mind when handing out roles
- Start sparingly. It is easier to give rights than to take them back.
- Moderator rather than admin if somebody is only meant to tidy up — they then never reach design or team in the first place.
- Owner stays with you. Handing it over is deliberately a separate, rare step.