Our finalized regional scope — how we define palouse (our shared, cross-border scope) alongside puw, lws, and pdt (the per-state-side local scopes that sit within their own state's geographic branch, not underneath palouse), where the names come from, and how we're coordinating with neighboring mesh communities in the Inland Northwest.
palouse is our shared, cross-border community scope: every Palouse Mesh repeater carries it, regardless of which state it sits in, and it covers the WA/ID/OR tri-state corner where the Palouse, Moscow, and Lewiston communities meet. Think of it as the conceptual umbrella name for "the Palouse" as one cross-border community — the shared identity tying together the WA-side, ID-side, and OR-side local areas as a single whole.
In the MeshCore region hierarchy, palouse sits as a direct child of pnw — a peer alongside state tags (wa, id, or), not nested under any single state. The per-state local scopes — puw (WA side), lws (ID side), and pdt (OR side) — are separate, independent scopes; a repeater can carry any combination of them with or without the geographic chain tags. The hierarchy is administrative — it describes how scopes relate conceptually, not what a repeater must carry for any given scope to work.
Naming history: This scope was previously carried region-wide under the single tag puw (the IATA code for Pullman-Moscow Regional Airport). As of August 2026, palouse took over that shared, cross-border role, and puw narrowed to mean the WA-side local scope specifically — with lws added as its ID-side counterpart. Note this reuses the name "palouse," which earlier appeared on Gessaman's scope page and in some older region definitions with a similar but not identical meaning before the network settled on puw region-wide; this is a fresh, deliberate reintroduction of that name for the new umbrella role, not a reversion.
pnw palouse ← shared cross-border scope ← you are here wa / se-wa / puw ← WA-side local scope wa / e-wa ← sibling of se-wa, not part of the puw chain id / n-id / lws ← ID-side local scope or / c-or / pdt ← OR-side local scope
Palouse Mesh has historically operated under ie (Inland Empire) — the cross-border Spokane/Coeur d'Alene community scope. That tag has been officially renamed to inw (Inland Northwest) in the MeshCore region hierarchy. From Gessaman's scope reference:
Renamed the cross-border Spokane/Coeur d'Alene community tag fromie("Inland Empire") toinw("Inland Northwest").ieis a historical label that is also, and more commonly, used for a distinct region in Southern California;inwmatches the Wikipedia disambiguation for the Spokane–CdA corridor and avoids the ambiguity.palouseandlcare reparented fromietoinwaccordingly. Repeaters that already carryiemay continue to do so for interoperability, but it is no longer part of new recommendations. — Gessaman's MeshCore scope reference
For Palouse Mesh, this means our shared scope sits directly under pnw — no longer nested under ie or inw. The original rename from palouse to puw followed that same logic: airport code over landscape name, cross-border over WA-centric. See the naming history note above for how palouse has since come back as the shared cross-border scope, carried alongside — not above — the per-state puw / lws / pdt airport-code tags.
This proposal does not advocate for inw as the name for a shared umbrella scope. INWMesh has confirmed their #inw- channel names are based on their group name — Inland NW Mesh — rather than a region scope, and they appear to be transitioning toward geg-based channel naming as scoping rolls out. That's the right direction and helps clarify the distinction. It also highlights why inw as a shared umbrella name carries a group association — which is why a mutually agreed neutral name makes more sense for something meant to represent all communities.
Because of that close association, the broad scope tag should be community-first and community-chosen — something all participating regions arrive at together from the start. A shared regional scope is still something we're open to, and the concept has real value. The prerequisite is just that the name reflects everyone involved, not just one group's existing identity.
INWMesh — the Spokane-metro mesh community — has been the primary driver behind the inw (Inland Northwest) tag as a proposed shared umbrella for all neighboring communities. The open question is delineation: for a shared regional scope to work well, it helps to have a name that's clearly distinct from any single participating community — something everyone can equally identify with.
That distinction matters practically. A community scope like geg or palouse keeps traffic within one community's footprint. A shared umbrella reaches every repeater in every partner region simultaneously — a different tool with different implications. INWMesh has indicated their bots and local channel traffic will move to geg scope as regions roll out, which is the right direction — channel naming details are still being worked out. The remaining open question is the umbrella name itself — whether it can be something neutral that all communities agree on together. The two paths below lay out where things stand.
Channel & Bot Scoping — Current State
#thepalouse → palouse#bot-palouse → palouse#wx-palouse → palouse#test-palouse → palouse#thepalousetest → palouse#se-wa → se-wa#eat-bot and channels) → eat#bot-tc and channels) → se-wa#inw-bot → geg planned#inw-ping → geg planned#inw-test → geg planned#inw-weather → geg plannedThe two paths below describe how we see this working out.
Each region focuses on its own scope. palouse is a direct child of pnw — a peer alongside other community scopes — and neighboring regions coordinate directly with each other where it makes sense, without requiring a shared umbrella.
palouse (puw/lws/pdt) Palouse corridor — Palouse Mesh ← you are here geg Spokane metro — INWMesh psc Tri-Cities — Shrubsteppe alw Walla Walla — Shrubsteppe eat Wenatchee
Existing cross-community scopes already demonstrate this works. se-wa is a live example: puw, psc, and alw share it today as a Southeast Washington coordination scope — bilateral agreement, no umbrella required. Path A leans into this model: direct coordination between communities that have agreed, rather than a single umbrella requiring broad upfront consensus.
Regardless of the path forward, we always plan on keeping an open door to interregion coordination — helping our bordering repeaters carry a neighboring scope if they want us to help relay, sharing observers, and whatever else being a good neighbor looks like in practice.
If all participating communities agree on a mutually chosen, neutral umbrella tag, Palouse Mesh is open to carrying it. The tag would sit as a child of pnw, giving the region a shared coordination scope — but the name must come from collective agreement, not arrive pre-affiliated with any single community.
pnw [tbd] ← umbrella — name agreed upon by all communities geg Spokane metro — INWMesh palouse Palouse corridor — Palouse Mesh ← you are here psc Tri-Cities — Shrubsteppe alw Walla Walla — Shrubsteppe eat Wenatchee (also carries c-wa)
Palouse Mesh sits within a proposed PNW-wide region structure. Every repeater on the network carries these tags so traffic can be scoped at any level. palouse sits as a sibling of wa / id / or — a peer under pnw, not nested under any single state. The hierarchy is administrative; each scope is independent and works on its own.
west — Entire mesh (Western US / SW Canada)
pnw — Pacific Northwest
palouse — Cross-border shared scope (WA + ID + OR tri-state corner)
wa — Washington State
se-wa — Southeastern Washington (Pullman, Walla Walla, Tri-Cities)
puw — WA-side local scope (Pullman-Moscow corridor)
e-wa — Eastern Washington (sibling of se-wa, not part of the puw chain)
id — Idaho
n-id — Northern Idaho (Moscow, Lewiston, Clearwater area)
lws — ID-side local scope (Lewiston corridor)
or — Oregon proposed — no repeaters yet
c-or — Central Oregon
pdt — Wallowa County, NE Oregon
Oregon coverage is included as a just-in-case proposal — so that Wallowa County has something in place if regions are ever enforced and there's otherwise nothing there. Palouse Mesh is happy to cede that scope whenever an Oregon community is ready to take it on.
A running log of hierarchy changes on this page — kept here since the region structure has moved a few times as coordination with neighboring communities has progressed.
Path A adopted as the chosen path. The proposal is finalized — independent coordination between communities, with the door open for continued conversations on Path B.
Introduced palouse as the shared, cross-border scope — a sibling branch directly under pnw, alongside wa / id / or, not their parent or child. puw narrowed from its prior universal role to the WA-side local scope specifically. lws is a brand-new tag for the ID-side local scope. pdt continues unchanged as the OR-side local scope. Each scope is independent — the hierarchy is administrative, and repeaters can carry any combination that makes sense for their location.
puw promoted to a direct child of pnw — a cross-border scope at the same level as wa, id, and or, not nested under any single state. All Idaho-side Palouse Mesh repeaters began carrying n-id (Northern Idaho) alongside puw. This is the shared cross-border role palouse has since taken over — see the August 2026 entry above.
The cross-border Spokane/Coeur d'Alene community tag was renamed from ie ("Inland Empire") to inw ("Inland Northwest") in the upstream MeshCore region hierarchy, per Gessaman's scope reference — see Where We Came From below for the full note. palouse (in an earlier, different sense than its current role) and lc were reparented from ie to inw at that time.