Nodes

Nodes are NodeLoc’s sub-communities. Each node revolves around a topic (VPS, domains, AI, casual chat, etc.). After joining a node, you can quickly access it from the sidebar, and posting to a node helps your content reach like-minded people.

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Browsing and Joining Nodes

• Visit Browse Nodes to see all nodes, filterable by category (Internet services, devices & hardware, tech & creation, etc.).
• Click “Join” on a node card to become a member; you can also “Leave” from the node page.
• Node pages support three view modes: compact, expanded, and card.
• The “Nodes” section of the sidebar shows your recently visited nodes, and My Nodes collects the nodes you’ve created, joined, and manage.

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Creating a Node

Eligible users can create their own nodes: After creation:

• The system automatically creates a member group and a management group, and automatically publishes a welcome post.
• An “Invite friends” window opens with a ready-made permanent invite link; copy it and send it on (see “Invites and rewards” below).
• You are notified of every new topic in the node from the start; switch it off under Mod tools → Settings.
• As the node’s creator, you can edit node info, set node rules, and add node links (up to 3).
• The creator cannot leave their own node; you can transfer ownership to another member under “Mod tools → Settings → Ownership” (see “Transferring ownership” below).

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Node Page Features

Inside a node, the right-hand info panel shows the node’s description, member count, topic count, post count, and admin list, and provides:

• Join / Leave: manage your membership
• Invite: members of an open node can mint their own invite links to bring friends in (see “Invites and rewards” below)
• About: view the node’s details
• Node Rules: node-specific rules set by the creator — read them before posting

Without permission to post or reply, the “New topic” and “Reply” buttons stay visible; pressing one explains what is in the way and how to get past it: log in, join on the spot and carry on (open nodes), request to join (private nodes), or — for a muted or banned member — the term and reason.

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Managing your node

Node owners and moderators enter the mod tools from the “Mod tools” button in the right-hand panel of the node page, at /n/node-slug/mod. The tools are split into sections, one per job:

• The node owner (and site staff): edit the node’s info, appearance and admission mode, appoint moderators, transfer ownership.
• Moderators: work the review queue, manage restricted users, assign user flair, pin replies, close discussion branches.

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Overview and review queue

• Overview is the node’s dashboard: this week’s pending reviews, join requests, new members, active members, new topics and replies; 30-day trends for members, topics and replies; live invite links and how many people joined through them; and the inviter ranking — over 7 / 30 / 90 days, all time or a custom date range — showing who brings people in, with rewards given right from there by the owner.
• Review queue collects content flagged or waiting for approval inside the node, to approve or reject in one place.

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Node rules

Write the node’s own rules (a title plus a description). They are shown on the node page where members see them before posting, and can be added, edited or removed at any time.

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Moderators and members

Membership is managed across two tabs:

• Moderators: add or remove moderators. Moderators can use the moderation features of the mod tools, but cannot change the node’s settings.
• Members: see and manage everyone who has joined.

A private node shows visitors a landing page with “Request to join” instead of hiding away; the owner or moderators approve or deny requests in the mod tools.

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Invites and rewards

An invite link looks like https://www.nodeloc.com/n/<node-slug>/i/<code>. It opens on a page with the node’s card — icon, “so-and-so invited you to join”, member count, description. Newcomers sign up on that same page and land inside the node as members; a logged-in reader joins with one click; a member goes straight in. Who can mint links

• The owner and moderators, any time, under the mod tools’ Invite links section.
• Members of an open node too: the “Invite” button on the node page opens their own invite window — mint a link, see the links they made, and how many members they have brought in.
• In a private node only the owner and moderators can. A banned member cannot.

Each link has an expiry (1 / 7 / 30 / 90 days or forever) and a people limit (1 / 5 / 10 / 25 / 100 or unlimited). The link minted when a node is created is permanent and unlimited. Any link can be revoked; the owner’s Invite links section shows every link into the node with who made it, and can revoke any of them. Invite stats and rewards The node records who joined through whose link. The overview’s inviter ranking lists inviters and their headcount per period, and the owner can reward from there — every row has a “Reward” button:

• Points: moved from the owner’s own balance to the member; refused if the balance is short. Rewards are never minted by the platform.
• Something else: a token, merchandise — given by the owner, with a note kept here for the record.

The ranking shows what each inviter has already received, and the full reward history sits under it. To pay out automatically on a schedule (say, the weekly top three), install a bot on the node that listens for member_invited; the points it awards come out of the balance of the owner who installed it.

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Restricted users

Members who misbehave can be restricted per node, without affecting them anywhere else on the site: Terms run 1 / 3 / 7 / 28 / 365 days or permanent, with an optional reason (sent to the member by message). While restricted, the “New topic” and “Reply” buttons stay visible and pressing one shows the term and the reason; the server refuses anything that gets past the button.

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User flair

Flair is a small label (text + emoji + colour) worn beside a member’s name, only inside this node. A member can wear several at once.

• Moderators define flairs and assign them; flairs marked “mod-only” cannot be picked by members.
• When “let members pick their own flair” is on, members choose for themselves.

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Links and tags

• Links: up to 3, shown as a small banner beside the node’s topics — good for docs, chat groups or resource pages.
• Tags: node owners can keep tag groups of their own (tags that do not exist yet are created, no trust level required; they are usable across the whole site, not only in the node), set how many tags a new topic must carry at minimum (0 makes tags optional), and require new topics to carry tags from a chosen group. Restricting a tag to a single node is a site setting and stays with the admins.

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Channels

Connect the node to what you publish elsewhere: a new YouTube video, a Telegram post, a blog entry or a Bilibili upload becomes a topic in the node on its own. A node can connect up to 10 channels; only the node owner manages them. Click “Connect a channel” and pick a type: YouTube is push-first: while YouTube has not yet confirmed the subscription the state reads “Polling” and the channel feed is read every 10 minutes instead, switching back to push once confirmed. RSS and Bilibili channels also have a “Check now” button for when you would rather not wait. Each channel has its own options (the pencil button):

• Post as: the node owner, or the site’s channel bot account.
• Publish manually: when checked, synced items wait in the node’s review queue until you approve them; by default they publish directly.
• Posts per day, at most: 20 by default; anything beyond is skipped and recorded.
• Title prefix and tags to add.

The list shows each channel’s state (Live / Waiting for confirmation / Subscription expired / Disabled), when it last synced, any error, and the items received most recently. The rotate icon only refreshes the status; a YouTube channel waiting for confirmation shows a “Resubscribe” button, and an unbound Telegram channel can “Issue a new code”. Synced topics carry a source badge (From YouTube / From Telegram / From RSS / From Bilibili / Synced) that links back to the original.

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Node appearance

On the node page, the pencil buttons on the banner and icon, or the palette button, open the appearance panel: change the node icon, upload light / dark banners, tune the key colour. Changes preview live and only take effect when saved. The key colour washes the whole node page — background, buttons and accents; it can also be switched off in settings, keeping the colour only on the node’s disc.

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Settings

At the top of the settings page is a New topic alerts switch: the owner is notified of every new topic in the node by default and can turn it off here; a new owner after a transfer starts with it on too. Below that the page covers the node’s appearance, access and posting rules, plus two tabs:

• Official mark: a verified merchant can apply for the official community mark on one of their nodes. Staff review the application, and the mark shows beside the node’s name. The mark follows the merchant term — it lapses when the term ends or the node changes hands, and restores itself when the same owner renews.
• Ownership: hand the node to another member.

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Access and posting

“Access and posting” has two columns that decide separately what people who have not joined and node members may do here. Underneath they map onto Discourse’s category permissions (the everyone group and the node’s member group): Non-members never get more than members: widening the non-member side pulls members up, narrowing the member side pulls non-members down. Moderators always have full rights.

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Transferring ownership

A transfer is a handshake — nothing changes the moment it is sent: An offer stays valid for 7 days and can be withdrawn at any time before it is accepted.

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Pinning a reply

In nested view, a reply can be lifted above all the others. It is what you want when the answer, the conclusion, or an important correction is buried forty replies down and everyone arriving late has to dig for it. Who can pin:

• A topic’s author, in their own topic
• A node’s creator and its moderators, in any topic in their node
• Staff

Open the reply’s actions and choose “Pin”; choosing it again unpins. Pinning only changes the order inside that one topic — it does not push the topic up any list, which is a different thing entirely.

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Closing one branch

Sometimes the topic is fine and only one thread of it has gone bad. Closing the whole topic to deal with that is far too blunt — closing a branch stops replies to that one reply and everything nested under it, and leaves the rest of the topic running. Only a node’s creator and its moderators (and staff) can do this — not the topic’s author. Pinning is “read this one first”, which is the author’s to say; closing part of the conversation is moderation, and belongs to the people who answer for the node. Open the actions on the reply and choose “Close this branch to replies”; choosing it again reopens it.