This looks like a W at first glace, until…

It’s not news that Discord has grown exponentially over the last few years. With the growing userbase things can go sideways sometimes.

Shortly after the introduction to threads, Discord teased the idea of a forum channel. It’s coming. No idea when but it is. “It’s like Reddit”, redditors said. There’s quite an argument on whether this is going to be something revolutionary or yet another unused Discord feature.

What is a forum channel?

This is a forum channel:

In simple words, it’s Reddit. It’s a channel where users can make posts (threads) about set topic.

Members can view the posts, create posts, or interact with other’s posts. You can even create tags which is interesting.

But what’s not interesting is that you cannot click the tags to browse through posts with that tag. At least not yet. This feature is still under development so I believe they’re going to implement that.

Available interactions so far are

• Emoji Reactions
• Follow thread to receive new comment notifications
• Share thread
• Add comments on the post
• “OP” original poster badge for post creator.

How can Forums be used?

• You don’t need to bother people in #general with your question. You just create a post in the #support forum where people can answer exactly what you are asking.
• Use them for asking for feedback on a creation or a suggestion, consider it a custom social media app for your community!
• Let’s be honest 📌Pins aren’t that visible to members in a channel. Threads can be a good substitute to this.

Forum channel is the 6th type of channel ever to be added

What’s all the hate about?

• No Search Engine Indexability

It doesn’t look like Discord is going to make these forums searchable on the internet. Like it has always been, all discord messages will be locked behind an invite link.

People are upset about this because public forums could be a game changer. What are your thoughts about this? Let us know!

• Accusations of Discord copying Guilded

I think this comment by u/anastarawneh sums up the argument pretty well.

I get why people think Discord is scraping all of Guilded’s feature recently.

• Boosts / Partnership requirements

Like almost all feature announcements, people are upset about whether this is going to have certain boost requirements. The answer is obviously yes. This is going to have to have some boost requirements.

This feature isn’t public yet, it’s slowly rolling out to a small number of servers. So far, I’ve only seen some partnered communities have it. Could this be limited to only partnered servers? I hope not.

That’s all — thanks!