Why forum channels are amazing

and how they solve frustrations with other features

When Discord launched forum channels in September 2022, I was skeptical.

I thought “the whole point of Discord was to move away from forum structure”

I’d been a Discord power user since 2015. I’d gotten used to text channels – I love them.

I didn’t think Discord admins or users would widely adopt forum channels (I think many admins are still hesitant).

Writing this post 2 years later, I’ve changed my mind.

In the context of Discord’s other features, they are the optimal solution for channel list manipulation and organizing emergent discussions.

I’ll explain

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First, I’m going to describe my frustrations with Discord’s user experience for adding and removing channels.

Here’s how it works:

1. As a part of “community onboarding”, an admin sets the default public channels that every new member has access to.

2. Optional channels are added in “Browse Channels” or “Channels & Roles” -> Browse Channels tab (if the server has customization questions)

My problems with this system:

• It’s not user-friendly to have to navigate to a separate menu to adjust the channel list

• The act of “Follow Category” seems like a shortcut. But the result of toggling “Follow Category” is not intuitive. Once you follow a category, you can’t remove channels within that category individually. You have to unfollow the category first and then select the channels you want.

• Newly created channels don’t automatically appear in the channel list. They show up in a pop-up “suggested” channels section that I don’t like dealing with.

I’d rather not engage with this at all, so I default to turning on “Show All Channels” when I join new servers.

I’d rather see all the channels by default. Plus, newly created channels get added automatically with a noticeable “new” label.

But turning on “Show All Channels” turns off the ability to remove channels by right-clicking them in the channel list.

So now I can’t adjust by subtraction.

Because of these problems, my philosophy on optimal structure design is this:

1. Give members all public channels by default, while keeping the channel list organized and low-clutter.

2. Keep the channel list organized by designing clear categories

3. Keep the channel list low-clutter by leaning on forum channels. Collapse entire categories into a forum channel where it makes sense.

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Why forum channels solve these problems:

Forum threads are more intuitive to add and remove to the channel list than navigating to “browse channels” for normal channels.

• You add them by participating in threads you’re interested in. You can even “follow” threads without posting in them.

• You remove them by right-clicking them and clicking “unfollow post”. This bypasses the problem of not being able to remove normal channels when “Show All Channels” is turned on.

• Forum threads even auto-hide after inactivity. They don’t clutter the channel list after a conversation has run its course. And they conveniently show up again to thread followers if the conversation is revived.

  • Admins set the inactivity timer for each forum channel. 3 days is the default. As a user, I prefer admins to set it to 1 week unless the channel is very active.

Adding and removing forum threads aligns with natural usage

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There are two ways to structure forum channels

Pre-set forum channels - only admins can create forum threads.

As I wrote about in my previous post, this is a great option for setting up a “focused-feedback” channel. And it can be used for any topic where you want “focused” subtopics for. Example - a forum channel for characters in your game where each thread is devoted to a character.

Discord forums have a limit of 20 tags. If your game reaches more than 20 characters, use archetypal or alphabetic (A-C, D-F, etc) groupings for tags

Free-flowing forum channels – all members can create forum threads.

This is a great option for giving members freedom to discuss anything they want within a topic. Sure you could create a (your game)-discussion category with rigid text channels that YOU decide on. But using a forum channel instead lets MEMBERS take the lead, resulting in dynamic emergent discussions.

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Most importantly, forum channels keep discussions organized at scale.

There will always be a place for text channels. You should use them where it makes sense.

But at scale, forum channels help important conversations “stay alive”.

They give these conversations a chance to evolve instead of disappearing amidst the chaos of text channels.