Private Communities in 📝MythOS are 📝Communities that are invite-only and never indexed, yet still shareable: someone without access can either request entry from the gate or join directly through a live steward-created join link. It is one of three MythOS community visibility modes.
Not every closed space wants to be a locked door with no sign on it. A cohort you are recruiting into, a team space a colleague should be able to find, a paid circle you link from a sales page — each needs the content gated while the invitation path stays open to the right person.
It is for creators running paid cohorts, teams keeping an internal knowledge base, and any group that wants to be findable by the people it chooses without being public.
Key Capabilities
- Members-only content — posts, comments, and the member list stay closed to everyone else, direct URL included.
- A gate, not a dead end — non-members see the name and description with a button to request access.
- Steward note and join-link preview — stewards can add a note (up to 400 characters) that appears on the gate as From the Stewards, and can turn on a read-only preview behind the join link that shows chosen sections (pinned posts, collections, calendar, memos, note) with author names hidden.
- Two controlled entry paths — a steward can invite someone directly, leave requests on, or enable a shareable join link that admits anyone holding it.
- Request with a message — a requester can say who they are and why, in up to 500 characters.
- Moderator decision — creators, moderators, and stewards approve or decline from the community's Moderate page.
- Declines hold — a declined request cannot be re-sent for seven days, so a no means no.
- Never indexed — excluded from search engines, AI crawler files, sitemaps, and community discovery.
- Full community parity — moderation, voting, discussion, and forking work identically to public communities.
Getting Started
- Open your community and go to its Settings page.
- Under Visibility, choose Private, then save.
- Invite people directly from the Members section, or turn on Join link under Visibility, choose when it expires (24 hours, 7 days, 30 days, next event, or never) and an optional use limit (25, 100, or 250), and copy the link. Resetting it retires the old link.
- Watch for requests on the community's Moderate page, under Access Requests, and approve or decline each one.
- Approving adds the person as a member immediately and notifies them; declining notifies them too, and starts the seven-day wait.
FAQ
- What exactly does a non-member see? The community name, its description, an optional note from the stewards, and a request-access field; once a request is sent, a line on how often requests are reviewed. No posts, no member list, no rules, no tags.
- What if they are not signed in? The gate or join-link page asks them to sign in first, since a request or membership has to attach to an account.
- Does a join link bypass the request queue? Yes. A live join link admits signed-in people directly; leave it off if every newcomer should request access.
- Does a shared post URL work the same way? Yes. A post link from inside a private community lands on the same gate rather than a not-found page.
- Can I hide the community's existence entirely? Yes — that is 📝Secret Communities, where non-members get a plain not-found response instead of a gate.
- What happens to pending requests if I change visibility? Moving a community to public or secret closes them automatically, since the requests queue only exists for private communities.
- Do I need a paid plan? Yes. Creating a private community requires 📝Oracle; Scholar can create public communities only.
Related
- 📝Secret Communities — the stricter sibling, where the community is indistinguishable from one that does not exist