Discussions

The feed shows everything in order — whoever wrote last is on top. The discussions show exactly the same material arranged by category: structure your team sets, and topics your members open inside it.

A topic is not a new kind of thing, it is a post with a category. That isn't a detail, it's the reason everything familiar still applies: comments underneath, voting up and down, reporting, moderation — none of it works differently here than in the feed.

Categories belong to the team

Members cannot create categories. That is deliberate: structure is a decision, not a by-product. You look after it in the dashboard under Discussions → Categories.

These addresses are taken and cannot be assigned: categories, new, all, search, api, about, badges.

Retire instead of delete. A retired category takes no new topics; what is already there stays readable. Deleting only works while the category is empty — if topics are in it, Pukalani refuses and suggests retiring instead.

There are no sub-categories.

Opening a topic

There are two ways in, but only one writing surface — both open the same composer and create the same post:

1. From the discussions. The Open a topic button sits above the topic list and on every category page. On a category page that category is already pre-selected — you can still change it.
2. In the feed. You write as usual and pick a category:

   With a category, your post also appears under Discussions.

This holds for all three kinds (post, poll, question) and for every signed-in member; no special role is needed. The category picker only appears once categories exist at all — and the Open a topic button only when there is a visible category.

Two directions, so there are no surprises:

• A post with a category still stays in the feed. A community has one place, not two.
• A post without a category does not appear under Discussions and has no address there.

The topic list

On narrow screens author, replies and views are hidden — the title always stays. 25 topics are loaded; Load more fetches the next batch.

Sorting

Top adds a period: All time, Year, Quarter, Month, Week, Today. "Today" means the calendar day, all others a rolling window (365, 90, 30 and 7 days). Pinned items are not pulled forward under "Top" — otherwise an announcement would sit permanently above the leaderboard.

Filters and search

Above the list sits Filter with a counter for how many are currently active. If any are set, the section opens by itself.

Reset filters clears everything at once. If the address bar holds a value that doesn't exist, it is ignored rather than reported as an error — a shared link should always show something.

What the search searches

The Search topics field searches the titles — and only those. Neither the body of a post nor the replies underneath are searched. That is the honest limit today; if you're looking for a word from the middle of a reply, you won't find it here.

In the category overview, the same field searches category names and descriptions.

The states of a topic

The three are independent and can be combined. They are set on the topic under Manage topic; they are shown as badges before the title.

Only published topics can be put into a state — a scheduled post doesn't have one yet.

Reactions

Under every topic — and under every reply — there is a bar of emoji chips. The smiley at the end of the bar opens the picker; clicking a chip you set yourself takes your reaction back. Several different reactions on the same content are fine, the same one twice is not.

The set is fixed and holds eight characters:

Reactions count towards no counter. They change neither a post's score nor its place under "Top", and badges still go by upvotes alone. The only exception is the First Reaction badge — and that hangs on the first reaction you give, never on one you receive.

There is deliberately no free emoji picker: any character at all would be a new moderation surface, and an insult delivered by emoji would have no way of being reported.

Linking to another topic

If you type a # in the editor, a menu of your community's topics opens. Without a search term it lists the most recently active ones; as you keep typing, it searches the titles. Once picked, a reference lands in your text that appears as a link to that topic when read.

The target topic then shows a Linked from section listing the topics that point at it. So a reference works in both directions — without anyone having to maintain it.

Four things behind that:

• A reference survives renaming. It points at the topic itself, not at its address. Renaming a topic later breaks no reference.
• Only topics can be referenced — published and with a category. Drafts, scheduled, hidden and category-less feed posts are not in the menu, and would not be linked either.
• Editing tidies up. Take a reference out of your text again and it disappears from the target's "Linked from" as well.
• Whatever fails the check stays text. A hash before a number (#42), a heading or an anchor inside an address is not read as a reference.

The first reference of your own earns the First Link badge.

The sidebar

On the left are at most five categories, and the heading says where they come from:

• Your categories — the ones you most recently wrote or commented in.
• Largest categories — while you haven't joined in anywhere yet.

Below that All categories and, set apart, the signposts of the area: About the discussions, Badges and — if the page exists — your Rules.

About the discussions

The About the discussions page answers the question "where have I landed?":

1. Your text. It comes from an ordinary page with the address discussions-about (Dashboard → Pages). If it's missing, the spot stays empty; only people allowed to manage pages see a hint there.
2. Four numbers: total topics · topics in the last 7 days · posts today · number of visible categories.
3. Who to talk to: leadership (owner and admins) and moderation, with names and pictures.

Deliberately absent: no numbers on active users, joins or votes cast, and no links to profiles. Pukalani has no public profile pages, and a number that is only roughly right is worse than none at all on an about page.

Rules

Your ground rules live at the address guidelines, that is yourname.pukalani.app/guidelines. They are an ordinary page and are edited in the dashboard under Pages — by the editor role and above.

Until you have created that page, Pukalani shows an editable default text there — for new and existing communities alike. The first time you save, it becomes your own page, and from then on only what you wrote applies. The text is a suggestion, not a legal document: what ends up there is your responsibility.

Badges

Under Badges there is a gallery of 30 awards in four groups. It always shows the whole catalogue — including what nobody has yet. That way you can see what there is to earn in the first place.

Approval means upvotes. Downvotes count towards no badge.

First steps

Community

Writing

Trust level

Every level reached earns a badge: Basic, Member, Regular and Leader. What's behind them is in the next section.

How they are awarded

• Some come more than once. The six badges in the Writing group are awarded per post or reply that crosses the threshold — a second post with ten votes is a second earning. The anniversary comes round again every membership year. The gallery then shows the count as ×2, ×3. Everything else — states such as Introduced and the cumulative thresholds of the Community group — stays one-off.
• You are notified. An earned badge appears in the bell ("Badge earned: …"), and by email if you want.
• The counting happens when writing and voting, not only when you look. But opening the gallery stays as a safety net: anything that was left behind for whatever reason is caught up there.

Badges appear only in this gallery, not next to your name in the topic list.

Trust levels

People who stay involved get more responsibility — without anyone having to hand out a role. There are five levels; the first three are earned, the fourth is granted.

All conditions of a level must be met at the same time. "Pieces" means topics and comments together.

What each level additionally allows:

Three promises you can rely on:

• It never goes down. A level you reached stays, even if you write nothing for a while.
• A level never takes anything away. It only adds to what your role allows anyway.
• Level 4 is granted by the owner under Dashboard → Trust levels — and can be withdrawn the same way. The badge stays even then.

How many approvals per day

Every member can upvote a limited number of posts and replies per day and community. How many depends on the trust level:

In everyday use nobody notices — it only becomes tangible when someone clicks their way down a feed. That is exactly what the limit is for: it slows down the person the community knows nothing about yet, and loosens up for the one who has taken part reliably for weeks.

Three points that settle any doubt:

• When the allowance is used up, Pukalani says so explicitly ("You are out of likes for today") — your vote is not silently lost.
• Taking a vote back gives nothing back. An approval given is spent, even if you withdraw it immediately; otherwise the limit could be worked around with two clicks per vote.
• Downvotes cost nothing. Switching from a downvote to an upvote, however, counts as a new approval.

The day is the same calendar day for everybody and does not follow your time zone setting. A limit that travels with your own choice would be no limit.

Mentions

If you type an @ in a topic or comment, Pukalani suggests matching members; once picked, it reads @name. The person mentioned gets a notification.

• The name belongs to your account. An @name applies across all of Pukalani, not just in one community: the same person is called the same everywhere, and two accounts cannot hold the same name at once. Whoever claimed it first keeps it.
• Nobody has to fill anything in. Pukalani suggests a name from your display name; you can be mentioned from day one.
• Changing it works in your community's dashboard under Settings, or in the account area under Profile — but at most every 30 days, see Your account.
• Old mentions stay intact. If you rename yourself, the old name stays reserved for you and keeps pointing at you in posts already written.
• Allowed are lower-case letters, digits and underscores, 3 to 24 characters — an underscore may not sit at the start or the end. Some names are reserved (such as pukalani, team, admin) and cannot be chosen.
• Mentions are highlighted but not linked — Pukalani has no public profile pages.
• Only someone who belongs to this community can be mentioned.

What doesn't exist today

So you don't go looking for it:

• No separate on/off switch for discussions. They hang off the Posts product and therefore off your plan. Once categories exist, they are there.
• No full-text search across post bodies and replies (see above).
• No sub-categories and no category colours.
• No public profile pages, and consequently no profile links.
• No demotion in trust levels and no level by hand except the fourth — the first three come solely through the thresholds.
• No badges next to the name in the topic list; they live in the gallery.
• No free emoji picker for reactions — the set is the eight characters above.
• No wildcard references. A # reference points at exactly one topic, not at a category or a search.

Who may do what

The roles in detail are under Members & roles.