Group conversations and moderation
Every group can carry its own conversation — announcements, posts, and comments that live inside Vianney. Posting never emails or texts anyone; if something deserves an email, compose a normal Connect message with its usual final confirmation.
The three modes
- Announcements only (the default) — leaders and staff publish; members read and can reply *privately* to the leaders.
- Discussion — members post and comment, visible right away.
- Moderated — member submissions wait, visible only to the author and moderators, until a leader or staff member approves or declines them (with an optional reason the author sees).
Set the mode per group. Youth groups can never be open discussion — if configured that way, Vianney quietly runs them as moderated, and members' names display as first name plus last initial.
Where it lives
- Staff: open a group's Workspace — the Conversation section shows every post (including pending and removed), private replies, and moderation controls.
- Members: the portal's Connect tab shows a My Groups table (and a table of open groups you can join); click into any group you belong to to open its conversation.
- Leaders: the same Connect view adds approve/decline/remove controls and the group's private replies.
Private replies
The conversation panel has two clearly separate boxes: write to the group, and Private to leaders. A private reply is visible only to its author, that group's leaders, and parish staff — never to other members. It lands in the same replies inbox staff already use.
Keeping it healthy
- Members can report a post to the leaders.
- Leaders/staff can remove a post (it becomes a neutral "removed" marker — history is kept for accountability).
- Staff can pause posting for one person in one group without touching their membership or messages.
- Authors can edit or delete their own post for a short window after writing it.
What it never does
No auto-emails, no auto-texts, no AI reading the conversation, and members never see anyone's email address or phone number.