Words SocietyPress uses, defined in plain English. If a term in another guide isn't obvious, it's probably in here. Organized by topic rather than alphabetically — most webmasters look things up by what they're trying to do, not what something starts with.
People
Member — Someone in sp_members. By definition has a WordPress user account behind the scenes, even if they never log in. A member's identity within SocietyPress is their member_record_id and email; their identity in WordPress is their user_id. SocietyPress keeps the two in sync automatically.
Visitor — Someone reading your site without logging in. Visitors can see public pages (events, the directory if it's set to public, blog posts, the library catalog), but not member-only content.
Admin / Webmaster — The volunteer who manages the site. Usually a WordPress administrator with full SocietyPress access. Charles writes "Harold" when he means the canonical non-technical webmaster persona — the one every guide is written for.
Society — Your organization. The entity that owns the website. SocietyPress doesn't model multiple societies per install; one install = one society.
Chair — A user who chairs at least one committee. Not a permission level — it's read live from the sp_committees.chair_user_id column. A chair sees the My Committee menu item in the SocietyPress sidebar; full admins see everything.
Membership terms
Tier / Membership tier — A class of membership with its own dues, term length, and benefits. Defaults are Individual, Joint, Lifetime, Honorary, and Subscription. Customizable per society in Settings → Membership Tiers.
Joint member — Two members in one household at one tier (typically a couple). Internally, joint members are two sp_members rows linked by the same household_id. The "Joint" tier exists so societies can charge once per household instead of per person.
Household — A group of sp_members rows sharing a household_id. Used for billing (one renewal per household) and physical-mail addressing (one envelope per household).
Active / Inactive / Lapsed — Member status values. Active = currently paid up. Inactive = explicitly archived (former member, deceased, etc.). Lapsed = membership expired and the grace period has run out. The renewal cron sends reminders before lapse and archives after.
Grace period — Days after expiration during which a member is still treated as active. Configured under Settings → Membership. After grace, status flips to Lapsed.
Fiscal year / Membership year — The 12-month window your society renews on. Many societies run a July-to-June fiscal year; the default is January. Configured as membership_start_month in Settings → Membership. Insights' "This fiscal year" window reuses this same setting.
Renewal reminder — Automatic email sent before and after expiration. Default schedule: 30 days before, 7 days before, 30 days after. Tunable in Settings → Membership → Renewal Reminders.
Events terms
Event — A scheduled activity (meeting, workshop, cemetery walk, conference). Stored in sp_events.
Registration / RSVP — A member or guest signing up to attend an event. Stored in sp_event_registrations. "Registration" and "RSVP" are interchangeable in SocietyPress; the admin column is labeled Registrations.
Slot — A specific time and capacity within an event. Used for events with multiple sessions (a tour with 9am, 11am, 1pm slots) or capacity limits. Most events have one implicit slot.
Speaker — A presenter associated with an event. Stored separately so a speaker who returns gets their bio carried over. Multiple speakers per event supported.
iCal feed — A standard .ics URL members add to their personal calendar app to subscribe to your events. SocietyPress generates one automatically. External Calendars also lets you subscribe to other societies' iCal feeds and pull their events into yours.
Library, records, and content
Catalog — Your library's book and media inventory. Stored in sp_library_items. Public-searchable; checkout tracking is optional.
OPAC — Online Public Access Catalog. Library jargon for the public-facing search interface to a library catalog. SocietyPress's library frontend is OPAC-style.
Record collection — A purpose-built database of transcribed records — cemetery indexes, census transcripts, marriage registers, obituary indexes. Each collection has its own custom fields. Stored as one row per collection in sp_record_collections, with the actual records in sp_records and per-field values in sp_record_values (EAV pattern).
GENRECORD — An open exchange format Charles maintains alongside SocietyPress for genealogical records. Lets one society's collection move to another platform that supports the format. See genrecord.org.
Surname research — A members-only inquiry index where each member registers the surnames they're researching, plus county/state/year range. Visitors search with Soundex + Metaphone phonetic matching and contact the researching member through an anti-spam form.
Page builder — SocietyPress's drag-and-drop page composer. You add widgets to columns on a page. No code, no Gutenberg.
Widget — A reusable content block in the page builder. Examples: Member Directory, Upcoming Events, Donation Form, Contact Card. Each widget has a settings panel (columns, filters, etc.) and a frontend renderer.
Shortcode — A bracketed code ([sp_donate], [societypress_join], etc.) you can paste into any page or post and SocietyPress replaces it with the live feature. Every public-facing module has a shortcode; widgets are wrappers around them.
Donations and money
Campaign — A fundraising drive with a goal amount, optional deadline, and a public progress bar. Donations can be tied to a campaign or "general fund."
Cover the fee — Optional checkbox on the donation form letting the donor pay the Stripe/PayPal processing fee (about 3%) so the society receives the full amount. SocietyPress calculates the bump and adds it to the charge.
Recurring donation — Monthly or annual giving via Stripe subscriptions. Stored as frequency = monthly | annual on the donation row. Renewals come through a webhook.
Pseudonymization — On a GDPR erasure request, donations don't get deleted (the IRS wants the dollar amount and date for nonprofit recordkeeping); the donor's name and contact info get wiped and replaced with placeholders. The amount and date stay on the books.
501(c)(3) — IRS designation for tax-exempt charitable nonprofits in the US. Donations to a 501(c)(3) are tax-deductible. Receipts must include specific language; SocietyPress fills it in automatically if you've entered your EIN under Settings → Organization.
Communications
Blast email — Mass email sent to all members or a targeted group (tier, committee, custom group). Stored in sp_blast_emails. Not the same as transactional email.
Transactional email — System-generated email triggered by a single event: a renewal reminder, an event confirmation, a password reset. Always one-to-one. Goes through wp_mail().
SMTP — Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. The plumbing email travels over. WordPress sends through PHP's mail() by default; for reliable delivery you point WordPress at a real SMTP service via a plugin like WP Mail SMTP. See the Email Setup guide.
SPF / DKIM / DMARC — DNS records that tell receiving mail servers your email is legitimate. SPF says "these IPs are allowed to send for my domain"; DKIM signs each message; DMARC tells the world what to do if SPF or DKIM fail. All three together is what gets you out of spam folders.
Permissions
Access area — A permission scope. SocietyPress defines 10: Members, Events, Library, Finances, Communications, Records, Governance, Content, Settings, Reports. A volunteer with the "Library" access area sees only the Library admin pages.
Role template — A pre-built bundle of access areas. Pick "Treasurer" and the Finances + Reports areas auto-check. SocietyPress ships 8: Webmaster, Membership Manager, Treasurer, Event Coordinator, Librarian, Communications Director, Records Manager, Content Editor.
WordPress administrator — A WP-level role (manage_options capability) that bypasses SocietyPress's access-area system entirely. Always has full access. To restrict an account, change its WP role to Subscriber first, then assign SP access areas.
Insights
Insight panel — One stat card on the SocietyPress → Insights page. Each panel shows a number, a label, and a sparkline for one module. Filterable through sp_insights_panels for child themes.
Sparkline — A tiny inline chart showing the trend of a number across the chosen time window. SocietyPress draws them as inline SVG (no chart library, no JavaScript). Up-and-to-the-right is good; flat is "no activity"; a recent dip means whatever you tried last quarter slowed down.
Time window — The period a stat is calculated over. Insights supports rolling 30 / 90 / 365 days, this fiscal year, and last fiscal year. Switching the window updates every card.
Other terms you'll see
ENS / EasyNetSites — Easynet Solutions, the platform many genealogical societies came from before SocietyPress. SocietyPress reads the standard ENS 86-column member-export CSV directly. ENS-Classic was sunset on 5/31/2027; ENS-R is its successor.
Picture Wall — A member-submission gallery (typically ancestor portraits) inside the Gallery module. Submissions land in a moderation queue; staff approves before they go public.
Society Sidebar — An auto-assembled member-portal nav widget that lists the enabled modules a logged-in member has access to. Drop the widget on any page (or use the [sp_society_sidebar] shortcode) for an ENS-style left rail without configuring a menu.
Lineage program — A membership-recognition program for descendants of a specific ancestor group (First Families of [your county], Pioneer Settlers, Civil War Veterans Descendants, Mayflower Descendants). Members apply, staff reviews proofs, approved applicants appear on a public roster with a printable certificate.
Help request — A member-submitted research question with a public archive of responses. Time-tracked answers automatically log to the volunteer-hours ledger.
Research case — A paid escalation of a help request that genuinely needs many hours of focused work. Stripe-billed up front; additional hours invoiced as needed.
Encrypted at rest — Member phone numbers, addresses, and dates of birth are stored encrypted using XChaCha20-Poly1305 via libsodium. The decryption key lives in wp-config.php (not in the database). Backups decrypt the fields to plaintext for portability.
Cron / wp-cron — WordPress's scheduled-task system. Runs jobs like renewal reminders, blast email queues, and access-log pruning. Replacing wp-cron with a real OS-level cron job is recommended for low-traffic society sites; see the Email Setup guide.
Transient — A short-lived cached value WordPress stores in the database with an expiration. SocietyPress uses transients for things that are expensive to compute and don't change often (Insights stats are not cached as transients today; that's a deliberate choice we revisit if a society reports slowness).
Harold — The canonical non-technical webmaster persona this whole project is written for. A senior volunteer who's served on a society board, isn't a developer, has limited time, and wants the site to stop fighting them.
Related guides
- Members — most of the membership terms in action
- User Access & Roles — full breakdown of access areas and role templates
- Insights — sparklines, time windows, panels
- Email Setup — SMTP, SPF, DKIM, DMARC, cron