Where it stands
The community layer is not available yet. Nothing below is in the member portal today, and there is no switch for it in settings. This page describes how it is designed to work, so you know what is coming and what it will and will not do.
What it will be
A board inside the member portal where your members can post, comment, react and run polls. Alongside it, a member-only directory with business cards, so people can find each other by what they do.
Members will join it themselves and can leave. It is not the same thing as being a member of your organization.
What a member will be able to post
Typed posts, so a board does not become an undifferentiated stream: an introduction, a question, a resource with a link, an offer.
Comments will be one level deep. No threads inside threads. That is a decision, not a missing feature: nested replies are how a small board turns into an argument nobody can follow.
Reactions will be on posts and comments. Polls get their own type, with results you can read.
Business cards and the directory
A member will fill in a card describing what they do and what they are looking for. Other members will be able to browse and search.
Contact details stay masked until a member chooses to reveal a card. So the directory is useful to members without being a scrapeable list of everybody's email address.
What a member will control
Their own visibility, field by field. A member decides which parts of their profile other members can see, and a member who has not joined the community does not appear in it at all.
Anything Sembr composes that involves members, such as the weekly digest, will be built only from members who are current and have chosen to be visible. Visibility is checked when the thing is built, not assumed.
Moderation
Any member will be able to report a post, comment or poll. Reports go to the hosts you have nominated.
A host can remove, restore or dismiss. Removing hides the content and retracts the author's engagement credit for it; restoring puts both back. Dismissing says the report was not actionable.
Hosts will be able to act straight from the notification email through a signed one-click link, without signing in first. A report at 9pm gets dealt with at 9pm.
Hosts will also get a weekly digest: what was posted, what is unanswered, and which discussions need somebody.
Ask Sembr and the community
When community text reaches the AI, the same rule will apply as everywhere else: no member name, email or document leaves Sembr. Identities are swapped for tokens before the request goes out and put back afterwards. There is an explicit allowlist of what a community value is even permitted to be, and anything not on it is refused rather than trusted. See Ask Sembr.
Turning it on
When it ships, it will be a setting, and off by default. With it off, none of the above exists for your members and the rest of the portal is unaffected.