Lela Benet · Follow
Published in · 7 min read · Nov 1, 2022
--
For most of Discord’s existence we only had access to two channel types — text and voice — but in recent times this has expanded to now offering five different channel types, each offering a unique way to expand your community. It doesn’t end there as there are also three “sub” channel types that you can use in certain circumstances.
In this article, we will go over each channel type, looking at their usage, pros, and cons. Let’s start with the most common of the 5, Text Channels.
The lifeblood of every Discord server is its Text Channels. They are the most common method of communication between members of a community. Text Channels are also used to convey important information — such as rules and self-assignable roles via bots. Text Channels offer the most freedom within a community, but they do have some flaws.
Common Use-cases
- General conversation.
- Sharing of images and videos that might be interesting to fellow community members.
- Rules channels to convey the server’s guidelines.
- Bot interaction channels such as for self-assignable roles or running commands for a bot.
Pros
- It is versatile as it offers no specific content restraints.
- It is the easiest of the channels to set up. Permissions are intuitive.
- It has access to all 3 “sub” channel types: Age-restricted, Chat Threads, Rules Channel.
Cons
- It is not great for sharing large bodies of static content
- Too many channels with differing topics can end up cluttering the server making it harder to manage and navigate.
In the beginning, Voice Channels only served a single purpose of voice communication with other community members. They have now become one of Discord’s most versatile channels offering more than just voice calls. Unfortunately, this versatility comes at the expense of tedious permissions. Let’s take a look.
Common Use-cases
- Voice chat with community members.
- Video calls for conference-style communication. Discord also offers background replacement via user settings for these video calls.
- Screen or application sharing, allowing you to stream your content to a Voice Channel for others to watch.
- Music channels, where people often use bots to listen to music with others.
- Watch parties, where a host streams for community members to all watch together.
Pros
- It offers voice, video, and text chat allowing a community to have a wide range of interaction.
- It has access to one “sub” channel type; Age-restricted.
- It contains a built-in Activities system which has Discord approved mini-games. (Still in beta.)
Cons
- Its permissions are time-consuming due to having voice, video, and text permissions.
- It is much harder to moderate than any other channel type.
- Its attached Text Channel is not intuitive to access or use.
- It has a 50-person limit on video viewing.
For all intents and purposes, an Announcement Channel is a Text Channel but with the added benefit of being able to “Publish” messages to servers that are ”Following” the channel. They are only accessible by enabling the server’s Community Mode setting.
You can read more about enabling Community Mode and how it affects your server in our article about it.
Common Use-cases
- For announcing important news about the community to community members and servers that follow the channel.
- Often used by bot support servers to share the current status of their bot to the servers that follow the channel.
Pros
- It allows for following of the channel so that published messages appear in a Text Channel in those servers.
- It has easy to use permission settings.
- It has access to two of the “sub” channel types; Age-restricted and Chat Threads.
Cons
- Its navigation to old announcements is difficult due to it being a Text Channel.
- It is not great for sharing large bodies of static content.
- It requires Community Mode to create.
Stage Channels solve a problem most people didn’t know existed on Discord: the need for a controlled voice channel through a webinar-like system to host live discussion events with community members. This is not something all communities need, but professionals and content creators gain a lot of value by having access to this tool. The downside is that it is only available by setting a Discord server to Community Mode.
Common Use-cases
- Allows for live QnA sessions with your community through the “request to speak” system.
- Hosting of special voice events without the need for special permissions to block your audience from speaking.
Pros
- It has a simple permission system with a lot of control.
- It has an intuitive UI that clearly indicates who is speaking and who is in the audience.
- It offers complete control on who is allowed to talk.
Cons
- It has no Text Channel attached to it like normal Voice Channels.
- It has no video functions to do screen or camera streaming.
- It requires Community Mode to create.
The newest addition to the channel types offered by Discord is the Forum Channel. This can be a game changer for communities with a lot of different topics and conversations going on at once. The Forum, while very simple in design, can add great value to your community by offering a more organized and dedicated way to have long-form discussions in the form of Forum Threads or Posts. These threads act similar to Chat Threads but are more accessible and can have tags attached to them. Unfortunately, this is another channel which requires Community Mode.
Common Use-cases
- Topical discussion channels such as a dedicated gaming forum for a specific game.
- Feedback and suggestion channels for community members to share their thoughts on your community.
- Introduction channel where new members can introduce themselves to the community.
Pros
- It allows for long-form discussions that do not clutter chat like they would if in a Text Channel.
- It allows for topical discussions that can be easily organized and managed.
- It has tags for finding specific posts more easily.
- It allows you to ”Follow” a post in which you will be notified when receiving a new reply to that post.
- It has access to one of the “sub” channel types: Age-restricted.
Cons
- It can only have one pinned post.
- Its tags have to be set up manually by someone who can manage the channel.
- Its forum Guidelines are not clearly indicated via the UI for people who are viewing the forum.
- It can cause the channel sidebar to become quite cluttered when replying to many posts.
It is clear that Discord is attempting to expand the ways that people can share content on its platform. There are still many things that it lacks — such as a proper way to share static information with your community, or media-only type of channels. That being said, the direction Discord is heading puts it well in line with being the all-in-one community solution.
