OK, so I’ll start with the basics… For those who don’t yet know what a wall post is: the term ‘wall post’ takes its name from the ‘wall’. This refers to the channel stream (also known as a personal timeline or profile on other services). This is the stream containing all the content published by the channel itself. With wall-posting, another user can post directly onto this ‘pinnwand’ (provided you allow it), so that these posts appear in the channel stream. It’s a bit like public personal communication.

This is precisely the feature that forum channels on Hubzilla make use of. Everything that is to be posted in the forum is posted as a wall-post to the forum channel. And anyone who follows the forum channel (i.e. is connected to it on Hubzilla) will now see everything posted there as a wall post in their stream (their timeline), even if they have no direct contact (a connection) with other forum users. Replies to such posts are consequently also distributed to all connections (followers). This makes it possible to run a forum.

A standard forum channel without connections is effectively dead. If you create such a channel using the default channel role ‘Community Forum’, only the channel owner can post there. However, nothing appears in anyone’s stream or timeline. It is an echo chamber. Nobody can post in the forum because the channel role does not allow it. However, if someone establishes a connection to the forum channel, it is brought back to life. The channel role defines the basic permissions for a channel… in other words, what others are allowed to see and do. Wall posting is not permitted. These permissions can now be extended using contact roles (though permissions granted by the channel role cannot be revoked). There is always a default contact role associated with every channel role. As the name suggests, these are permissions that only apply to connections… they have no effect on outsiders or visitors. And in a forum, the default contact role also includes the permission to post on the wall. So anyone who has a connection to a forum channel also has the permission to post on the wall there, i.e. to make posts in the forum. Anyone without a connection can only view the wall and its contents, but cannot post. A connection to the forum channel is therefore a prerequisite for participating in a forum.

And now back to the permissions (which are defined in roles… channel roles and contact roles):

The channel role determines which permissions the channel itself grants. The contact role makes it possible to grant connections (but only connections) further permissions. Every channel always has a default contact role, which varies depending on the channel role. For a channel without connections, this contact role has no effect, as it only applies to connections. You can also create your own contact roles to grant even more or different additional(!) permissions to specific connections.

Here is a table providing an overview of the standard channel and contact roles (CC0):

Image/photo

PDF-Version