Joining an Outpost

There are three different relationships you can have with an Outpost, and they are deliberately separate.

• Follow — its posts show up in your home feed. That’s all it does. You don’t become a member and you don’t get access to anything.
• Join — you become a member. You can post, comment, react, RSVP, and use the Outpost’s chat if it has one, and you can read members-only posts.
• Support — you take a paid tier. That includes membership, and adds whatever the host has put behind that rank. See Supporting an Outpost.

You can follow without joining — useful for an artist or a publisher whose posts you want without wanting to be in the room.

Joining

The controls sit in the top-right corner of the Outpost’s cover image. What you see there depends on how the host set the door.

Anyone can join

The button says Join. One click and you’re in — no confirmation, no approval, no waiting.

Anyone can ask

The button says Ask to join. Your request goes to the Outpost’s moderators, and the button becomes Request sent until someone decides. You can leave an optional note saying who you are.

If it’s approved you become a member. If it’s declined, nothing stops you asking again later — a “no” today isn’t permanent.

Invite only

There’s no Join button, because there’s nothing a button could do. You need an invite link from someone already inside. Ask the host.

Note

A Join button never appears for signed-out visitors — sign in first, then the door will show you what it is. You can still read a public Outpost’s wall without an account.

Why can I see this Outpost but not join it?

Because who can see an Outpost and who can join it are two separate settings, and hosts set them independently.

A publisher might run a fully public Outpost — anyone can read the wall, anyone can follow — while keeping membership invite-only for staff. A private game table might be unlisted but open to anyone holding the link. Both are normal.

See Visibility & discovery for the visibility half.

A few doors that won’t open

• You’ve been banned. A ban blocks joining by every route, including an invite link and an approved request. Ask the Outpost’s moderators if you think it was a mistake.
• The Outpost is frozen. PostRoll staff freeze an Outpost while something is under review. Nobody joins a frozen Outpost, whatever its door setting says.
• The Outpost has no chat community. Some Outposts are a shop or a newsletter with no community attached. There’s nothing to be a member of.

For hosts: choosing your door

1. Open your Outpost and click Settings (owner only).
2. Under Identity & visibility, find Who can join.
3. Pick one:
   • Anyone can join — best for a community that wants to grow.
   • Anyone can ask — best when you want to know who’s coming through the door.
   • Invite only — best for a private table.
4. Click Save changes.

Caution

Every Outpost starts invite only. That’s deliberate — nothing became joinable just because the setting shipped — but it does mean a brand-new public Outpost has a closed door until you open it.

For hosts: approving requests

If you chose Anyone can ask, applications land in two places:

• Your Outpost’s Home tab, in a moderators-only panel, so you see them without going looking.
• Steward → Join requests, which keeps the full queue.

Each request shows who’s asking and any note they left. Approve adds them as a member immediately. Deny closes the request and doesn’t stop them asking again later.

Approving somebody who has been banned is refused — lift the ban first, from the banned list in Steward → Members, so that un-banning stays a decision you took on purpose rather than a side effect.

Related

• Leaving an Outpost
• Visibility & discovery
• Moderating your Outpost