Visual Space manual, Spaces, Space Areas

A space area is a space, subspace, or activity. The term is useful when the same idea applies at every level, but it does not add another level to the product. Together, the three areas give a community one dependable map for conversation, content, planning, and live collaboration.

One Hierarchy Across The Space

Visual Space uses a strict structure: space → subspace → activity. Each level adds more focus without starting a separate organization system.

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A space is the community root. It carries the shared identity, membership, broad rules, roles, and starting point for navigation.

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A subspace groups related work. It can represent a project, department, topic, program, or any other useful way to collect several activities.

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An activity is the focused daily collaboration context. Chat, posts, documents, meetings, goals, events, and About content can stay connected to the same objective.

This shared context matters most when work moves between tools. A conversation can lead to a document, a meeting can produce goals, and an event can bring contributors back to the same activity without anyone having to learn a different folder or category structure. The Spaces overview shows how this hierarchy fits into the wider community experience.

Activities always belong to a subspace. They never live directly under the space root. That extra choice gives coordinators a little more setup work, but it prevents a growing community from becoming one flat list of unrelated destinations.

The public Activities panel keeps Onboarding and Playground visibly nested under General Discussions inside the current Space.

Choose The Level That Matches The Work

Start with the audience and purpose rather than the tool you plan to use. The right area is usually the narrowest level that still describes the work honestly.

Use the space level for information and choices that belong to the whole community: its identity, broad purpose, rules, membership, or material everyone should be able to find from the root.

A subspace is a good home when several focused efforts share a recognizable theme. For example, a product group might contain separate activities for research, delivery, and launch. The subspace keeps those efforts visibly related while each activity retains its own working context.

Choose an activity when contributors need one place for a concrete objective, ongoing responsibility, or time-bound effort. A good activity name helps a newcomer understand where its discussions, files, meetings, goals, and events belong. Activities can support long-running work, but completed or inactive ones should not crowd the active map.

These distinctions help avoid two common problems:

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Putting every effort at the same level, which makes the space difficult to scan as it grows.

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Creating separate structures for Chat, Documents, Goals, or Events, which makes related work harder to find later.

For a practical setup journey, follow Create Subspaces and Activities. When the structure already exists but needs attention, use Organize Subspaces and Activities.

Area Identity Includes Its Context

A space area is more than a row in navigation. Every space, subspace, and activity has linked article content that gives its name a fuller explanation: what the area is for, how people can contribute, which resources matter, and what participants should expect.

The linked content also supports the area's About experience. A newcomer can first use the concise area identity and summary to orient themselves, then open the fuller article when they need durable guidance. About Pages explains how those orientation surfaces work together.

Published areas also become named destinations within the nested space structure. Keeping an activity below its subspace makes the path through the community predictable: first the space, then the related group, then the focused work. The hierarchy is therefore both an organizing choice and a navigation promise.

Draft, Private, And Archived Are Different States

These states can look similar when an area is absent from an ordinary member's view, but they answer different questions.

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Draft means the area is still being prepared. A space, subspace, or activity draft remains visible only to its creator until publication, so unfinished names and onboarding material do not clutter other members' navigation.

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Private controls who can enter and see the protected area. A private parent also protects the areas below it. Private-area membership grants entry; it does not by itself grant permission to publish, organize, moderate, or manage.

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Archived applies to activities. It moves completed or inactive work out of the normal active list without creating another hierarchy or deleting the activity. Archived activities remain available through the archive view and can return to the active list.

Privacy is chosen as part of setup and publication, while permissions decide what an eligible person may do after entering. See Privacy for the full access model.

An activity can therefore be published and private, or published and archived. A draft is different: it has not yet become an ordinary destination for other eligible members.

New Spaces Begin Empty

Visual Space does not automatically generate a default subspace or activity. A new space begins with an empty work map so its coordinator can choose names and groupings that match the community instead of inheriting unexplained placeholders.

The first step is to create a subspace. Activities can then be created inside it; publishing a subspace does not fill it with generated activities. The Activities Panel explains how members browse the resulting map and recognize its current state.

Common Questions

Is a space area a fourth kind of object?

No. space area is the umbrella term for a space, subspace, or activity. Use the exact level when the distinction matters.

Can I create an activity directly under a space?

No. Every activity needs a parent subspace. Create or choose the subspace that best explains how the activity relates to nearby work.

Should a subspace represent a project or a category?

Either can work. A subspace can group activities by project, department, topic, phase, or another model that members will understand. Choose a stable grouping that makes the space easier to scan.

Does joining a private area let me manage it?

No. Private membership grants entry only. Roles and permissions separately determine who can publish, reorder, archive, or manage an area.

Does archiving create a separate section beside subspaces and activities?

No. Archive is an activity state, not another organization level. The activity keeps its place in the existing hierarchy while leaving the normal active list.

Why did my new space not include a default activity?

New spaces start empty. Create the first subspace, explain its purpose, and then add the activities that belong inside it.