Docs·4ff474d·Updated Mar 14, 2026·43 ADRs

Running a Community

Karmyq communities are intentionally small, purpose-built, and founder-configured. If you're starting a community — or thinking about it — here's what you control and what to think about.

Before You Create a Community

Ask yourself:

What is this community for? A neighborhood, a workplace, a faith group, a hobby circle? The clearer the purpose, the easier it is to set the right norms.
Who are the founding members? A community of strangers is hard to bootstrap. Starting with people who already know and trust each other gives it a foundation.
How will new members join? Open enrollment works for some communities; invite-only or approval-required works better for others.
What kinds of help do you expect to flow? Rides and errands? Childcare swaps? Skill sharing? This shapes which request types to enable.

You don't need answers to all of these before starting — but thinking through them upfront saves configuration headaches later.

What You Configure as Founder

Membership & Access

Visibility: Public (listed, open to join), Members Only (invite or approval required), or Hybrid (discoverable but approval-gated)
Max size: Karmyq communities have size limits by design. In small communities, people recognize names, accountability is natural, and generosity is reciprocated within a group people feel part of. When you hit the limit, the community splits.
New member lockout: A waiting period before new members can post requests — gives them time to observe norms before asking for help
Join approval: Whether you review each membership request manually

Request Types

You choose which request types are enabled in your community:

Generic (default) — open-ended "I need help with..."
Ride — origin/destination, passenger count, timing
Service — professional skill requests with budget and requirements
Event — community events with RSVP and support needs
Borrow — item loans with return dates and conditions

Enabling only the types relevant to your community keeps the feed focused and reduces noise.

Karma Multipliers

Different types of help can earn different amounts of karma. A two-hour tutoring session might be worth more karma than a five-minute favor. You can tune these multipliers to reflect what your community values.

Default multipliers are set to 1× for all types. Adjust them if you find certain kinds of help are systematically undervalued or overvalued in your community.

Trust Model

Your community's trust model shapes how trust scores are calculated for your members:

Depth weight: How much weight to give interactions within your community (bonding)
Breadth weight: How much weight to give interactions across communities (bridging)

A tightly-knit neighborhood group might favor depth (internal cohesion). A professional network that spans communities might favor breadth (external connections). The default is balanced.

Community Trust Score

Karmyq also computes a community-level trust score — a signal of how well your community is functioning as a mutual aid network. It reflects member quality, internal completion rates, and cross-community reach. You can tune the bonding/bridging balance here too.

What Happens as Your Community Grows

Cohorts

Not all members are equally embedded. The first members who helped shape the community's culture have deeper roots. New members start fresh and build trust through their first interactions. Karmyq tracks which cohort someone joined with as part of the trust picture.

Splitting

When a community reaches its size limit, it can split — creating a new community that inherits the relationships and culture of the original. Splitting keeps communities personal. It lets a successful community propagate without losing what made it work.

Multiple Communities

Members (including you) can belong to more than one community. Karma and trust are tracked separately in each — preserving the integrity of each community's economy and trust network.

This means a member who behaves poorly in one community doesn't automatically taint their standing in another. But it also means a strong reputation in one community doesn't fully transfer — trust is local.

The Professional Services Layer

If your community has professional service providers — rickshaw operators, repair people, tutors — you can enable the provider services layer in your community settings. This surfaces provider profiles to your members and can be filtered to only show providers who meet a minimum personal trust threshold.

Provider profiles are publicly visible by default (not community-gated), but enabling this feature in your community gives it more prominence in your members' experience.

Practical Tips

Start small and invite personally. A community of 15 people who all know each other is healthier than 100 strangers.
Set norms early. The first few months establish the culture. If requests go unanswered, consider whether the community has the right mix of needs and skills.
Use the lockout period. Letting new members observe before posting helps them understand the community before asking.
Check the community trust score. It's a useful signal that something has changed — a drop in completion rate is a conversation worth having with your members.