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How to Manage Members

Invite Users to your Group, change their roles, remove them, generate signup links for newsrooms to register their own Outlets, and approve or deny incoming membership requests — all from the Users tab and the General tab of Group settings.

Looking for a different settings tab?

For Outlets, see How to Manage Outlets. For the General tab, see How to Configure Group Settings. For Licenses, see How to Manage Content Licenses. For Tags, Series, and Boilerplates, see How to Manage Tags, Series, and Boilerplates.

Before You Begin

You must be a Group administrator to follow this guide. Outlet members without admin permission won't see the settings described below — ask your Group administrator if you're not sure which role you have. Some actions on this page are restricted further to Group Owners; those are flagged inline.

You will need:

Plucky Wire has four Group roles, ordered from least to most powerful: Reader (search and view stories only), Member (upload and edit stories, no settings access), Moderator (manage content and most settings), and Owner (manage every setting, including deleting the Group). For background on how Users, Outlets, and Groups fit together, see Users, Outlets, Groups. You can only assign roles at or below your own — Moderators can't invite Owners or promote anyone to Owner.

Instructions

Open the Users Tab

  1. Go to Settings (https://wire.pluckyworks.org/settings/) and select your Group from the sidebar.

  2. Click the Users tab.

The Users tab has two sections:

  • Group Admins — every User who has a role directly in the Group, with their email, name, role dropdown, and a Remove button. This is where you invite, promote, and remove Group-level admins.
  • Associated Users (read-only) — every User who belongs to an Outlet in your Group, with their roles inside those Outlets. Use this to keep track of who has access to your Group's content via their Outlet membership, without duplicating them as Group admins.

Invite a User Who Already Has a Plucky Wire Account

  1. In the Group Admins section, click Add New User. A search box appears.

  2. Start typing the person's name. Results stream in as you type, showing each match's name, Outlet badges, and job title.

  3. In the row of the person you want to add, click Send Invite. The button changes to Invite sent to confirm.

The recipient sees the invitation in Incoming on their Membership Requests page the next time they reload, and can accept or decline it there. Until they accept, the next search shows their row tagged Pending Invite rather than an invite button.

Note

If the person is already a Group admin, their row shows a Current Group Member badge instead of an invite button — they don't need a second invitation. Existing-User invitations default to the Member role; to give them a different role, change it from the role dropdown after they accept.

Invite Someone by Email

If the person you want to invite doesn't have a Plucky Wire account yet, the same search flow turns into an email invitation.

  1. In the Group Admins section, click Add New User and search for their name.

  2. When the search finds no matching User, the search results are replaced by an email invitation form.

  3. Enter the recipient's email address.

  4. Pick a role from the What role would you like them to have? dropdown. Available roles are Reader, Member, Moderator, and Owner — you can only choose roles at or below your own.

  5. Click Send Invite. A green Success banner appears confirming the email was queued.

    Invite-by-email form with email field filled, role dropdown set to Member, and Send Invite button below

The recipient gets an email with a sign-up link. They accept the invitation from that email link, not from the Membership Requests page. If they already have a Plucky Wire account with the invited email address, they may also see a read-only Check your email notice in Incoming until the invitation expires.

Warning

Inviting someone by email gives them administrative access to your Group at the role you select. Owners can change every setting and delete the Group; Moderators can manage content and settings. Only invite people you intend to give that level of control — once they accept, you'll need to come back and change their role or remove them to restrict their access.

Change a Member's Role

  1. In the Group Admins section, find the member you want to update.

  2. Open the role dropdown in their row (in the Change Role column) and pick the new role.

  3. A browser confirmation prompt appears asking "Are you sure you want to change [name]'s role?" Click OK to confirm.

The new role takes effect immediately. The User sees their permissions change the next time they reload Plucky Wire.

Warning

Demoting a member can take away access they were relying on — a Moderator demoted to Member loses every settings tab; a Member demoted to Reader can no longer upload or edit stories. Tell the affected User before demoting them, especially if they own work in progress.

Changing your own role

If you change your own role to a level below Moderator, you'll lose access to the Group settings page immediately. The confirmation prompt warns you specifically about self-role-changes, but the change is otherwise the same. If you lock yourself out, ask another Owner to restore your role.

Remove a Member

Removing a User from the Group Admins list ends their administrative role in your Group. They keep their Plucky Wire account and any Outlet memberships, but they no longer have a direct role in the Group.

  1. In the Group Admins section, find the member you want to remove.

  2. Click Remove in their row.

  3. A browser confirmation prompt appears asking "Are you sure you want to remove [name]?" Click OK to confirm.

Warning

Removing a Group admin revokes their administrative access to your Group immediately — every settings tab disappears the next time their browser reloads. Any stories they uploaded stay in the Group. There is no undo: to restore the User, follow Invite a User Who Already Has a Plucky Wire Account above.

Removing yourself

Clicking Remove on your own row ends your access to the Group's settings the next time you reload. The confirmation prompt warns you specifically about self-removal. If you remove yourself, ask another Owner to invite you back.

A signup link is a shareable URL that lets a newsroom register an Outlet on Plucky Wire and join your Group in one flow, skipping parts of the normal verification process. They're useful for kickoff meetings, conference outreach, or any moment when you want to hand multiple newsrooms a single link instead of inviting them one by one.

Signup links live in the General tab, not the Users tab.

  1. Go to the General tab of your Group settings and scroll to the Invite Links section, then to the Direct Sign-Up Links subsection inside it.

  2. Click Generate New Invite Link. A new card appears at the top of the list with:

    • An Active status badge.
    • The creation date.
    • An expiration date (default: 7 days out, editable).
    • Usage stats showing how many Users have registered through the link and how many Outlets they've created.
    • A read-only URL field with a Copy button.

  3. Click Copy to put the URL on your clipboard, then share it via email, your website, or any other channel.

Warning

Anyone who has a signup link can use it to create an Outlet and join your Group without going through the normal verification flow. Only share signup links with newsrooms you know and trust. If a link leaks publicly, follow Deactivate a Signup Link below to revoke it.

Tip

You can have multiple signup links active at once with different expiration dates — handy for tracking which outreach campaign brought which newsrooms in.

  1. On the signup link card, click Change Expiration Date. The date display is replaced by a date-and-time picker.

  2. Pick a new date and time. The expiration must be in the future.

  3. Click Save.

The new expiration takes effect immediately. Click Cancel instead to discard the change.

  1. On the signup link card, click Deactivate Link.

  2. A browser confirmation prompt asks "Are you sure you want to deactivate this invite link?" Click OK to confirm.

The link's status badge changes to Expired/Inactive and the Deactivate Link button disappears.

Warning

Deactivating a signup link is immediate and permanent — anyone who tries to use the URL after deactivation sees an error page. There is no reactivate button. If you need a working link again, generate a new one and share it with whoever still needs it.

Handle Membership Requests

When someone applies to join your Group instead of being directly invited — for example, by clicking a join button on your public profile — their request lands on the Membership Requests page. The page also shows pending invitations and requests sent by Users, Outlets, and Groups you belong to.

  1. Click Membership Requests in the top navigation bar.

    The page has two main sections:

    • Incoming shows requests waiting on you, or on an Outlet or Group you belong to.
    • Outgoing shows requests and invitations you sent, or that someone at your Outlet or Group sent.

  2. Review the rows in Incoming. Each row shows who is requesting, when, and which Group or Outlet is involved. If a request includes a message, click View Details to expand it and see the requested role.

  3. For rows with action buttons, click Approve to add the User or Outlet to your Group, or Deny to reject the request.

    If you can see a row but cannot decide it, it shows an Admin Only badge. That means an Owner, Moderator, or Plucky staff member with the right authority needs to handle it. Email-invitation notices do not show action buttons; the recipient must use the link in the email.

The requester is emailed about the outcome when a request is approved or denied.

Warning

Approving a request adds the requester to your Group immediately — Users gain whatever role they requested (subject to your role-hierarchy limits), Outlets gain access for every one of their members. Read the request and any attached message before clicking; if the request includes a role you'd rather not grant, deny it and invite the User yourself with the role you do want.

Note

Outlet admins also see requests on this page — User-to-Outlet requests instead of User-to-Group. The page handles both Group-level and Outlet-level requests, so what you can approve depends on which roles you hold.

What Happens Next

Member-management changes ripple to other people in your Group:

  • A User you invited (existing account) sees the invitation in Incoming on their Membership Requests page the next time they reload. They become a Group admin once they click Approve.
  • A User you invited by email receives an email with a sign-up link. They become a Group admin once they accept through that link and create an account, at the role you selected. If the invite matches an existing account email, the User may also see a read-only reminder on the Membership Requests page.
  • A User whose role you changed sees their available actions update the next time they reload — settings tabs appear or disappear, the upload form becomes available or not, and so on.
  • A User you removed loses every Group-admin permission immediately. Any Outlet memberships they have are unaffected; they keep access to those Outlets and to any stories they uploaded.
  • A newsroom that follows a signup link lands in a guided sign-up flow that creates their Outlet and adds them to your Group in one pass. Their Outlet appears in the Outlets tab; their Users appear in Associated Users on the Users tab.
  • A requester you approved or denied receives an email about the outcome. Approved Users and Outlets gain access immediately.

Most actions on this page are reversible — change a role back, deactivate a leaked signup link, re-invite a removed member. The two exceptions: deactivating a signup link cannot be undone (generate a new one), and an email invitation that's already been accepted can't be rescinded except by changing the new admin's role or removing them.

Next Steps

Troubleshooting

  • The User search isn't finding someone I know exists: The search matches names, not email addresses. Try the person's first and last name, and confirm the spelling. If they don't appear after a couple of attempts, they probably don't have a Plucky Wire account yet — keep typing until the email invitation form appears below the empty results, and invite them by email instead.

  • The role dropdown won't let me pick Owner: You can only assign roles at or below your own. If you're a Moderator, the dropdown shows only Reader, Member, and Moderator. Ask an Owner to make the change, or to promote you to Owner first.

  • My email invitation didn't arrive: Ask the recipient to check their spam folder. If it still hasn't arrived after a few minutes, repeat Invite Someone by Email to send a fresh invitation. Plucky Wire deduplicates by recipient email and Group, so re-sending won't create a second pending request.

  • A signup link returns an error when someone tries to use it: The link has expired or been deactivated. Either extend its expiration via Edit a Signup Link's Expiration, or generate a new one and share that.

  • The Membership Requests page is empty but I'm expecting requests: Make sure you are signed in with the account that belongs to the relevant Group or Outlet. The page shows pending requests connected to Groups and Outlets you belong to, but only authorized admins and Plucky staff can approve or deny them.

  • A "Pending Invite" badge is stuck on someone who told me they accepted: Reload the page. If it is still pending, check how they were invited. Existing-account invitations are accepted from Incoming on the Membership Requests page. Email invitations are accepted only through the emailed link; if that link expired, send a fresh invitation.

  • Still stuck? Email support@pluckyworks.org, or ask any other Owner of your Group if there is one.