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Pin Scopes — Sitewide, Personal, and Group

The plugin supports three independent pin scopes. Each one maps to a different stream, a different audience, and a different set of allowed pinners. A pin in one scope never leaks into another.

Permissions tab showing role grid for personal pins

Sitewide pins

Section titled “Sitewide pins”

Stream: the main /activity/ directory. Pinner: users with bp_moderate (typically site administrators). Audience: everyone who visits the activity directory.

Use these for community-wide announcements, rule reminders, event launches. Stored as type = administrator with component = activity and group_id = 0.

A sitewide pin is the highest-volume placement in your community — keep the per-admin cap (Permissions → Pinning Limits → Per admin) tight: 2 to 3 is plenty.

Personal pins

Section titled “Personal pins”

Stream: the activity tab on a member’s profile (e.g. /members/jane/activity/). Pinner: the profile owner, if their role is ticked under Permissions → Who Can Pin. Audience: anyone visiting that profile.

Members use personal pins to feature their best content — a portfolio post, a personal milestone, an introduction. Stored as type = user with the user_id field set to the profile owner.

Important behavior:

  • A user can only pin their own activities to their profile.
  • Personal pins are scoped to the profile they were pinned on. They do not appear on the sitewide stream.
  • An administrator viewing a member’s profile and pinning that member’s post creates a personal pin for that member, not a sitewide pin (BPSP 2.3.2 fix).
  • An administrator pinning from the main /activity/ directory creates a sitewide pin (admin pin). Same admin, different scope, decided by the page they are on.

Group pins

Section titled “Group pins”

Stream: a group’s activity feed (e.g. /groups/announcements/activity/). Pinner: depends on the Group Pin Authority radio (Permissions → Group Pin Authority). Default is creator + admins + moderators. Audience: members of that group (or the public if the group is public).

Use these for group rules, weekly threads, or important discussions inside a single group. Stored as component = groups with group_id set to the group ID.

The four group-pin scopes:

group_pin_scope setting Allowed group-side pinners
creator Only the user who created the group
admin Creator + group admins
mod (default — historical behavior) Creator + admins + mods
all Every confirmed group member

Site administrators (bp_moderate) always pass regardless of the setting.

Group admins and moderators bypass the per-user pin limit when pinning inside their own group — the limit only applies to personal-profile pins. Site admins always bypass it.

Decision matrix

Section titled “Decision matrix”
You are on Your role Pin button creates
/activity/ Site admin Sitewide pin (admin)
/activity/ Member with permission Not allowed — admins only
/members/me/activity/ Profile owner with permission Personal pin
/members/jane/activity/ Site admin Personal pin on Jane’s profile
/groups/x/activity/ Site admin Group pin
/groups/x/activity/ Group creator / admin / mod (per scope setting) Group pin
/groups/x/activity/ Group member, scope = all Group pin
/groups/x/activity/ Group member, scope ≠ all Not allowed
Section titled “Related”