Roles and permissions

Roles group members and decide what they can do. Every member has the @everyone role, and can have any number of other roles on top of it. A member gets every permission from every role they have.

The community’s owner always has every permission, whatever their roles say.

The @everyone role

@everyone sets the starting permissions for all members. In a new community, @everyone can:

• see channels, send messages and read message history
• add reactions, attach files and embed links
• connect, speak and use video in voice channels
• create invites and change their own nickname
• start and join games in chat

To change these, open Community settings, choose Roles, and select Default permissions. The @everyone role can’t be renamed or deleted.

Create a role

You need the Manage roles permission.

1. Select the community’s name at the top of the sidebar and choose Community settings, then Roles.

2. Select Create role. A role called “new role” is added and opens for editing.

3. On the Display tab, set it up:

   • Role name: up to 64 characters.
   • Role colour: members’ names show in the color of the highest colored role they have.
   • Display role members separately from online members: lists online members who have this role in their own group in the member list.
   • Allow anyone to @mention this role: lets every member mention the role. Members with Mention @everyone can always mention it.

4. On the Permissions tab, turn on the permissions this role should grant. Use Search permissions to find one quickly.

5. Select Save changes.

New roles start at the bottom of the role list, just above @everyone. A community can have up to 100 roles, counting @everyone.

To delete a role, open it, go to the Display tab, and select Delete role. Everyone who had it loses it and its permissions.

Give someone a role

You need the Manage roles permission.

1. Open Community settings and choose Members.

2. Find the person. You can search by name or @username, or filter by role.

3. Select the plus button in their Roles column and choose a role. Choose it again to take it away.

You can also remove a role by selecting the X on the role’s label in the member’s row.

Role order and hierarchy

Roles are listed from highest to lowest. A member’s highest role is the one of theirs closest to the top. To reorder roles, drag them in the list or use the up and down arrows next to them.

These rules decide who can manage whom:

• The owner outranks everyone. Nobody can kick, ban, time out, or change the roles or nickname of the owner.
• You can only manage members below you. To kick, ban, time out, rename, or change the roles of a member, your highest role must be higher than theirs. Two members whose highest role is the same can’t moderate each other.
• You can only manage roles below you. You can edit, assign, remove, move or delete only roles that are below your own highest role. Roles at or above it show a lock and are read-only for you. Anyone with Manage roles can edit @everyone.
• You can’t hand out what you don’t have. You can only grant or remove permissions that you have yourself, both in roles and in channel permissions. Administrators and the owner can grant anything.
• Administrators can’t be timed out.

Tip

A common setup is a Moderator role placed above your members’ roles, with Kick members, Time out members and Manage messages turned on. Moderators can then handle members below them without being able to change the roles above them.

Permission reference

These are all the permissions in Rally, grouped the way they appear in the role editor. The last column shows which ones @everyone has in a new community.

General permissions

Permission	What it lets members do	On for @everyone
View channels	See channels and read their names. If a member can’t view a channel, it’s hidden from them completely.	Yes
Manage channels	Create, edit and delete channels, and create categories. They also aren’t affected by slowmode.
Manage roles	Create, edit, order and assign roles below their own highest role, and change channel permissions.
Manage community	Change the community’s name, icon, banner, description, category, tags, welcome channel, visibility and Discover listing, and see and revoke all invites.
View audit log	See the community’s audit log of changes and moderation actions.

Membership permissions

Permission	What it lets members do	On for @everyone
Create invites	Create invite links to the community.	Yes
Change nickname	Change their own nickname in this community.	Yes
Manage nicknames	Change other members’ nicknames.
Kick members	Remove members from the community. They can come back with a new invite, or rejoin directly if the community is public.
Ban members	Remove members and keep them out until the ban is revoked, and see and revoke bans.
Time out members	Temporarily stop members from sending messages, adding new reactions, using voice and starting games.

Text permissions

Permission	What it lets members do	On for @everyone
Send messages	Send messages and replies in text and announcement channels. Starting a game in chat also needs it.	Yes
Embed links	Meant for link previews, which Rally doesn’t show today, so this setting has no effect right now. Links are always clickable.	Yes
Attach files	Upload files and images.	Yes
Add reactions	Add new emoji reactions to messages. Members without it can still join a reaction that’s already there.	Yes
Mention @everyone	Use @everyone and @here, and mention any role, even one that doesn’t allow mentions.
Manage messages	Delete other people’s messages, pin and unpin messages, and post without waiting for slowmode.
Read message history	Read the messages in a channel, including older ones and pinned messages. Without it, the channel shows “Couldn’t load messages.” instead, though the member can still post if they can send messages.	Yes

Voice permissions

Permission	What it lets members do	On for @everyone
Connect	Join voice channels. In a voice channel where a member can’t connect, the other voice permissions don’t apply.	Yes
Speak	Talk in voice channels. Without it, members can join and listen only.	Yes
Video	Turn on their camera and share their screen in voice channels.	Yes
Mute members	Set aside for voice moderation tools. It doesn’t do anything yet.
Deafen members	Set aside for voice moderation tools. It doesn’t do anything yet.
Move members	Set aside for voice moderation tools. It doesn’t do anything yet.

Activities permissions

Permission	What it lets members do	On for @everyone
Use activities	Start and join games in chat. Starting a game also needs Send messages.	Yes

Advanced permissions

Permission	What it lets members do	On for @everyone
Administrator	Every permission in every channel. Channel permission changes don’t apply to administrators. Grant it with care.

Change permissions for one channel

Channel permissions let you change what roles or specific members can do in a single channel, without changing their roles. You need both Manage channels (to open the channel’s settings) and Manage roles.

1. Hover over the channel in the sidebar and select its gear icon.

2. Choose the Permissions tab.

3. Select @everyone, a role, or a member from the list on the left. To add another role or member, select the plus button (Add a role or member) and search for them.

4. For each permission, choose one of three settings:

   • Deny (the X): turn it off in this channel.
   • Default (the slash): don’t change it; use whatever their roles give them.
   • Allow (the check mark): turn it on in this channel.

5. Select Save changes.

To remove a role’s or member’s changes, select Remove override. For @everyone, select Reset.

Text and announcement channels show the text permissions plus View channels and Use activities. Voice channels show View channels and the voice permissions.

How Rally combines channel permissions

Rally works out what a member can do in a channel in this order:

1. Start with everything the member’s roles allow across the community.
2. Apply the channel’s settings for @everyone.
3. Apply the channel’s settings for all of the member’s roles together. Anything one of those roles denies is turned off, then anything one of them allows is turned on, so Allow wins when two roles disagree.
4. Apply the channel’s settings for that specific member, if there are any. These come last, so they win.

A few more rules always apply:

• The owner and members with Administrator ignore channel permissions and can do everything.
• If a member can’t View channels, the channel is hidden from them and nothing else matters.
• If a member can’t Send messages, they also can’t attach files or mention @everyone in that channel.
• In a voice channel, a member who can’t Connect can’t speak or use video there either.
• A member who’s timed out can only view channels and read messages until the timeout ends. See Moderation and safety.

Examples

A private channel for one role: set View channels to Deny for @everyone, then add the role and set View channels to Allow.

A read-only announcement channel: set Send messages to Deny for @everyone, then add the role that posts announcements and set Send messages to Allow.

A voice channel where only some people talk: set Speak to Deny for @everyone, then add the role that should speak and set Speak to Allow. Everyone else can still join and listen.

Note

If a permission’s setting is grayed out, you don’t have that permission yourself, so you can’t allow or deny it. If a role or member already has settings that include permissions you don’t have, Rally shows a warning, and only someone with those permissions can change them.