Looking after the Porch

The Porch is where your members speak to the whole group. Looking after it is quiet work, and it is yours. Most of what people share reaches the board on its own. What comes to you is the smaller part that needs a person.

When the safety check is not sure about something, it holds the post and brings it to you instead of the board. You decide where it belongs. You can welcome it to the board, keep it private, or remove it when it was spam or sent in error. The member never sees a verdict. They only see that their note is with you. A post left waiting too long is gently flagged, so nothing sits unseen.

Some notes are meant for you alone, and the safety check keeps sensitive ones private too. These rest on their own messages page. You can reply, and your words reach the member by email and sit under their note on the Porch, where they can answer by replying to the email. When a member gives permission, you can move a private note onto the board, and it becomes public only if they say yes. For a post already on the board, you can ask a member's permission to carry their words into the weekly letter.

You set the house rules yourself, in plain words, what is welcome and what to keep off. Threshold shows your members a clean version and quietly routes a post that breaks one to you rather than the board. The check for harmful content stays on beneath all of it, always. The rules are yours to shape, so the Porch keeps sounding like your group.