How it works
The participation loop behind every Coterie — share, match, review, contribute.
The loop
Every Coterie runs on the same four-step cycle. Understanding it is the fastest way to understand the whole product.
Share
A member shares something they've published into an open community session. Sessions create a regular rhythm for members to bring work to their circle.
Match
Coterie surfaces relevant work from other participating members, using niches and community settings to make those matches useful rather than random.
Review
Members work through their matches before the session closes. Read the work, consider it properly, and contribute where you have something useful to add. Any action you choose to take on the original platform remains entirely up to you.
Contribute
Showing up builds your participation history and reliability within the community. Coterie rewards community participation — not likes, comments, shares or any other external-platform action.
Why a scheduled session, not an open feed
An always-open feed sounds more convenient, but it's exactly what kills momentum in most communities: nothing has a deadline, so nothing gets done. A party has a start, a window, and a close. Owners set how big it is and how long it runs; members know exactly when to show up and exactly what's expected of them while they're there.
A party moves through a simple lifecycle:
scheduled → grouping → running → finished
Once it's running, submissions lock, matches go out, and the clock starts. When it closes, the results (completed reviews, contribution awarded, reliability updates) are final.
Why participation is tracked
Communities work when members consistently show up. Coterie keeps a simple record of participation so people who contribute to the community can continue sharing their own work with it.
Participation isn't tied to any particular action on the destination platform. You aren't required to like, comment, share or follow someone's content to complete a Coterie review.
Every contribution award — for reviews completed, for finishing a whole session, for extending a streak, and for monthly reliability — is recorded in an append-only ledger, so a member's total is always auditable and can be recalculated from the record.
Why niche matching matters
Every member picks a niche when they join. Matches are built from within — and, where a creator enables it, explicitly around — that niche, so a marketer isn't stuck reviewing a construction post they don't understand, and a competitor isn't quietly grading your homework.
Reliability, not just participation
Showing up once doesn't make you reliable. Coterie tracks a reliability score per member based on how consistently they complete what they're matched with, plus a strike count for members who repeatedly skip or misbehave. Owners can pause a member whose reliability drops too far — the system protects the quality of the group, not just its size.
This is the model in one sentence: Coterie gives professional communities a structured way to share work, discover each other's ideas and build a culture where people consistently show up.