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Communities Overview

Status: Complete

A community is the top-level organizational unit in Chatalot -- similar to a "server" in other chat platforms. It is the container for everything: groups, channels, members, roles, custom emoji, and settings.

What is a Community?

When you open Chatalot, the community picker on the left side of the screen shows all the communities you belong to. Clicking a community loads its groups and channels in the sidebar.

Each community is an independent space with its own:

  • Members -- users who have joined the community, each with a role
  • Groups -- organizational folders that contain channels (like categories in other chat platforms)
  • Channels -- text and voice channels where conversations happen
  • Roles -- a hierarchy that determines who can do what (Owner, Admin, Moderator, Member)
  • Custom emoji -- community-specific emoji uploaded by admins
  • Settings -- name, description, icon, banner, policies, theme, and welcome message

Hierarchy

Chatalot uses a three-level hierarchy:

Community
  └── Group
        └── Channel (text or voice)
  • A community contains one or more groups.
  • Each group contains one or more channels.
  • Channels are where actual messaging and voice calls take place.

When you create a community, a default "General" group with a #general text channel is automatically created for you.

Community Membership

You must be a member of a community to see its groups and channels. There are two ways to join:

  1. Invite link -- someone in the community generates an invite code and shares it with you.
  2. Public groups -- if you are already a community member, you can freely join any public group within that community.

Joining a community does not automatically add you to all groups. Public groups auto-add all community members when created, but private groups require a separate group invite.

Discoverability

Communities have a discoverable setting. When enabled, the community name and description are shown to anyone who receives an invite link. When disabled, invite links show "Private Community" instead.

Key Concepts

Concept Description
Community Top-level container for all organizational structure
Group An organizational folder within a community (see Groups)
Channel A text or voice conversation space within a group (see Channels)
Role A permission level assigned to each member (Owner, Admin, Moderator, Member)
Invite A shareable code that allows new users to join the community

Next Steps