Skip to content

Managing Members

Status: Complete

Communities are built around their members. This page covers inviting users, understanding the role hierarchy, managing roles, and removing members.

Inviting Users

To invite someone to your community, you need to generate an invite link.

Creating an Invite

  1. Open the community you want to invite someone to.
  2. Navigate to the community settings or invite management area.
  3. Create a new invite with optional parameters:
  4. Max uses -- limit how many times the invite can be used (leave blank for unlimited)
  5. Expiry -- set how long the invite remains valid, from 1 hour to 8,760 hours (1 year)
  6. Grants role (CHAT-123) -- the role new members get on accept. Defaults to member. Set to moderator or admin to provision a higher-tier member directly from the invite. Useful when bringing on operations or engineering staff who shouldn't have to be promoted manually after they join.
  7. Share the generated invite code or link with the person you want to invite.

Permission Required: Who can create invites is controlled by the community's who_can_create_invites policy. This can be set to everyone, moderator, or admin. See Community Settings.

Role-grant constraint: You can only mint an invite that grants a role strictly lower than your own. An admin can mint moderator-grant invites; only the owner can mint admin-grant invites.

Accepting an Invite

When someone receives an invite link:

  1. They open the link or enter the invite code.
  2. They see a preview showing the community name, description, and member count (if the community is discoverable; otherwise it shows "Private Community").
  3. They click Accept to join the community.

Banned users cannot accept invites. Users who are already members will see a message indicating they have already joined.

Tip: New members are automatically added to all public groups when they join a community. Private groups require a separate group invite.

Managing Invites

Community admins and owners can view and manage all active invites:

  • See each invite's code, usage count, max uses, and expiry
  • Delete invites that are no longer needed

Permission Required: Community Admin or higher

Role Hierarchy

Each community member has one of four roles, listed from most to least privileged:

Role Level Description
Owner Highest Full control over the community. Only one owner per community.
Admin High Can manage settings, members, invites, emoji, and moderate.
Moderator Medium Can kick and ban members, manage timeouts and warnings.
Member Default Standard access. Can chat and participate in channels.

What Each Role Can Do

Action Owner Admin Moderator Member
Edit community settings Yes Yes No No
Delete the community Yes No No No
Transfer ownership Yes No No No
Create invites (default policy) Yes Yes Yes Yes
Manage invites (view/delete) Yes Yes No No
Promote to Admin Yes No No No
Set member roles (member/moderator) Yes Yes No No
Kick members Yes Yes Yes* No
Ban/unban members Yes Yes Yes* No
Manage custom emoji Yes Yes No No
Set member nicknames Yes Yes No Own only
View ban list Yes Yes Yes No
Issue timeouts and warnings Yes Yes Yes No

Moderators can only kick/ban members with the Member* role. They cannot kick or ban Admins or other Moderators.

Changing Member Roles

Permission Required: Community Admin or higher (only the Owner can promote to Admin)

  1. Open the members panel for the community.
  2. Find the member whose role you want to change.
  3. Select a new role: member, moderator, or admin.

Rules: - You cannot change your own role. - You cannot change the Owner's role. Use Transfer Ownership instead. - Only the Owner can promote members to Admin. - Admins can set members to member or moderator.

Setting Nicknames

Members can set their own nickname within a community. Admins and owners can set nicknames for any member.

  • Nicknames are 1--64 characters.
  • Setting an empty nickname clears it, reverting to the user's display name.
  • Nicknames are community-specific and do not affect the user's global profile.

Kicking Members

Permission Required: Community Moderator or higher

Kicking removes a member from the community and all of its groups and channels. The kicked user can rejoin if they receive a new invite.

  • You cannot kick yourself (use Leave instead).
  • You cannot kick the Owner.
  • Moderators can only kick members with the Member role.
  • Admins can kick Members and Moderators.

Banning Members

Permission Required: Community Moderator or higher

Banning removes a member and prevents them from rejoining via invite links.

  • Provide an optional reason (up to 500 characters) for the ban.
  • You cannot ban yourself or the Owner.
  • Moderators can only ban members with the Member role.
  • Admins can ban Members and Moderators.
  • The ban list is visible to Moderators, Admins, and the Owner.

Unbanning

Permission Required: Community Moderator or higher

Unbanning a user removes them from the ban list, allowing them to accept future invites.

Viewing the Members Panel

The members panel shows all community members, organized by role. Owners appear first, followed by Admins, Moderators, and then regular Members.

Leaving a Community

Any member (except the Owner) can leave a community at any time. Leaving removes you from the community and all of its groups and channels.

The Owner cannot leave. To step down, the Owner must either:

  • Transfer ownership to another community member, or
  • Delete the community entirely

Transferring Ownership

Permission Required: Community Owner

The Owner can transfer ownership to any other community member. When ownership is transferred:

  • The new user becomes the Owner.
  • The former Owner is demoted to Admin.
  • The target user must already be a member of the community.

Next Steps