Picnics: Public Community Broadcast Channels in Clody

A Picnic is a public community channel in Clody. Unlike Branches — which are private and limited to friends — anyone can find and join a Picnic. Admins broadcast posts to the entire audience; members respond through comment threads. To protect lively conversation, member comments are anonymous to other members but always visible to admins, giving your community room to speak freely while keeping moderation practical.

What Is a Picnic?

Picnics are built around a broadcast model: a small group of admins writes posts, and the wider membership comments on them. Every Picnic has:

A name (up to 30 characters) and an optional description (up to 50 characters).
An optional custom link — once set, /@/<link> redirects anyone straight to your Picnic.
A member count visible to everyone.
An optional comments layer — controlled by the support_comments flag at creation or edit time.
A single pinned post slot for important announcements.

You can search for Picnics by name with POST /api/picnic/search ({name: string}).

Roles

Owner

The user who created the Picnic holds the Owner role. The owner is automatically an admin and cannot be banned or demoted.Owner capabilities:

Everything an Admin can do
Edit Picnic name, link, description, and support_comments toggle via POST /api/picnic/edit
Manage the admin list (add or remove admins, as long as the owner stays in the list)
Upload the Picnic avatar (POST /api/cdn/picnics/avatars/upload, max 5 MB)
Delete the entire Picnic via POST /api/picnic/delete

Admin

Admins are appointed by the owner. There can be multiple admins. Admins drive the content.Admin capabilities:

Post new messages to the Picnic (POST /api/pm/create)
Edit any Picnic post (POST /api/pm/edit)
Delete any Picnic post (POST /api/pm/delete)
Pin or unpin a post (POST /api/pm/pin_message)
Upload files to the Picnic CDN (POST /api/cdn/picnics/upload, max 30 MB)
Ban and unban members (POST /api/picnic/ban / POST /api/picnic/unban)
View the real author behind any anonymous comment or post
Access the management panel (POST /api/picnic/manage) — returns members, admins, owner, and bans

Member

Anyone who has joined the Picnic and has not been banned is a member.Member capabilities:

View all posts and comment threads
Post comments on posts (when support_comments is enabled)
Mark posts as read (POST /api/pm/mark_read)
Leave the Picnic (POST /api/picnic/leave)

Anonymity: Members see comments from other members without author attribution. Only admins see who wrote each comment.

Creating a Picnic

curl -X POST https://clody.lol/api/picnic/create \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -b "session=<your_session_cookie>" \
  -d '{
    "name": "Clody Updates",
    "link": "clody-updates",
    "description": "Official announcements",
    "support_comments": true
  }'

You must have fewer than three active warnings on your account to create a Picnic.

Joining a Picnic

Any logged-in user can join an existing Picnic with POST /api/picnic/join:

curl -X POST https://clody.lol/api/picnic/join \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -b "session=<your_session_cookie>" \
  -d '{"id": 7}'

The server responds with the Picnic object and emits an added_picnic Socket.IO event to your session.

Custom Links

Setting a link on your Picnic (up to 30 characters, must be unique) lets users navigate to /@/<link> and be redirected to the Picnic page automatically. You can add or change the link at any time from POST /api/picnic/edit (owner only).

Comment Threads

When support_comments is true, members can post comments on individual messages. If you later set support_comments to false via POST /api/picnic/edit, the comments column is cleared and new comments are blocked. Comments are anonymous from the members’ perspective. Admins can always identify the comment author.

Pinned Message

Admins can pin any single post so it surfaces prominently to members. Pinning and unpinning both use POST /api/pm/pin_message:

curl -X POST https://clody.lol/api/pm/pin_message \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -b "session=<your_session_cookie>" \
  -d '{"id": 88, "pin": true}'

The updated Picnic object (including the new pinned field in data) is broadcast via update_picnic to all members.

Moderation

Admins can ban members with POST /api/picnic/ban by supplying the Picnic ID and the target member’s user ID. A banned user:

Is removed from the member list immediately.
Receives a system notification and a banned_from_picnic Socket.IO event.
Can still read existing posts but cannot join, post, or comment.
Cannot be re-admitted until an admin calls POST /api/picnic/unban.

You cannot ban the Picnic owner. You also cannot ban a user who currently holds an admin role — remove the admin role first via POST /api/picnic/edit.

Real-Time Events

All Picnic activity arrives through the Socket.IO / namespace. See Real-Time Events for connection details.

Event	Payload	When it fires
`added_picnic`	Picnic object	You joined or created a Picnic
`update_picnic`	Picnic object	Settings changed, a post was pinned, or the avatar updated
`new_pmessage`	Message object	A new post was published
`update_pmessage`	Message object	A post was edited
`delete_pmessage`	`{id, picnic_id}`	A post was deleted (along with its comments)
`new_comment`	Comment object	A new comment was posted
`update_comment`	Comment object	A comment was edited
`delete_comment`	`{id, message}`	A comment was deleted
`new_reaction`	Reaction object	An emoji reaction was added
`delete_reaction`	Reaction object	An emoji reaction was removed
`banned_from_picnic`	`{id, name}`	You were banned from the Picnic
`deleted_picnic`	`{id}`	The Picnic was deleted by its owner

Get Started

Core Concepts

Guides

Picnics: Public Community Broadcast Channels in Clody

What Is a Picnic?

Roles

Creating a Picnic

Joining a Picnic

Custom Links

Comment Threads

Pinned Message

Moderation

Real-Time Events

​What Is a Picnic?

​Roles

​Creating a Picnic

​Joining a Picnic

​Custom Links

​Comment Threads

​Pinned Message

​Moderation

​Real-Time Events

What Is a Picnic?

Roles

Creating a Picnic

Joining a Picnic

Custom Links

Comment Threads

Pinned Message

Moderation

Real-Time Events