Space channels

A channel is a chat room that belongs to a Space rather than to the people in it. Every member who meets the channel's requirements is in it; nobody has to be added.

Finding channels#

The Channels tab on a Space lists the channels you can read, most recently active first. If you are not a member of the Space, the tab says the channels are for members.

Channels also appear in your ordinary chat list once you have opened them, next to your direct messages and groups.

Who can read and post#

A channel can be limited to members from a chosen role up — its Visible to setting. A channel visible to Everyone in the Space is open to every member whose role allows reading chat. Two things decide what you can do in one:

1. your chat capability in the Space — read, react, send, or moderate;
2. the channel's Visible to role, if it has one.

Both have to be satisfied. A member below that role does not see the channel at all — not in the Channels tab and not in their chat list — and a member whose role cannot send sees the composer say Your role in this Space can't send messages here.

A no chat restriction or an active timeout overrides your level and stops you sending until it lifts; a timeout's composer says until when.

Creating a channel#

Creating a channel needs the moderate chat capability, which by default means Moderator and above. Create channel on the Space's Channels tab asks for:

• a name;
• an optional topic, a line about what the channel is for;
• who it is Visible to: everyone in the Space, or a role and above. You can choose up to your own role, never above it.

A Space can have up to 250 channels; at that number, Create channel says the Space has reached its channel limit.

Editing a channel#

Anyone who can create channels can change them later: Edit channel in the channel's menu, on the web and in the app, changes the name, the topic and who it is visible to. Everyone in the channel sees the new name and topic straight away. The topic shows in the channel's details menu on the web and at the top of its menu in the app.

Raising Visible to takes the channel away from members below the new role at once, open conversations included; lowering it brings them back, history and all.

Slow mode#

On a Space with Ultra — the owner's plan or the Space's own — Edit channel also has Slow mode: how long each member waits between their own messages — 5, 10 or 30 seconds, 1, 5 or 15 minutes, or an hour. While you wait, the composer shows Slow mode and the time left. Moderators are not limited. If Ultra ends, the setting is kept but paused. A Space's auto-moderation rules can also block or flag channel messages.

Archiving#

Archive (Archive channel in the app) closes a channel to new messages and keeps its history readable; you find it in the channel's menu, on the web and in the app. The composer says the channel is archived. Archived channels are not mixed in with the live ones: they are listed after them, under Archived, and still open read-only.

Unarchive (Unarchive channel in the app), in the same menu, reopens it. Archiving is shared state, not a per-person setting — it changes the channel for everyone — and it is reversible, which is what makes it the right move for a room that has run its course.

Moderation#

Channel messages are Space content: they can be reported like anything else, and a Space's moderation reaches them. Direct messages and group chats are not Space content and are out of reach — see Moderating a Space.

Notifications#

Channel activity follows your per-Space notification level, and any single channel can be muted on its own from the conversation. Muting a channel does not leave it, and you keep reading it whenever you like.