BuddyPress.org

I’d like to limit the ability of WordPress users with the “Subscriber” role to interact with the BuddyPress functionality of my website. Is there any way to remove permissions for posting activity updates, commenting on them, etc? Basically I want one set of members to be able to post activity stream updates, and the other set to just spectate with the ability to comment on the site’s blog posts, and not much else (like the regular subscriber role w/o buddypress access).

I know BP doesn’t really work the same way with roles/capabilities as wordpress… My only ideas off the top of my head are to nest the relevant BP template bits in tags that hide them based on role, but that seems… not pretty.

Thanks for any pointers!