I organized our Discord server

I have been running a Discord server with my gaming buddies since 2016- and it’s still active. Over the course of 7 years, I have likely rearranged it more than 100 times. Yes, everyone did get annoyed, they tolerated it because of their love for me, I hope.

This rearranging included deleting and reactivating channels, testing out new features, and delegating moderators, among other things. I must say, Discord is still undoubtedly the best platform for organizing our group chats with a large number of friends.

I am finally at a point where I can proudly say that we have found a set of channels and categories that work perfectly for my group of friends. I say this because I haven't really rearranged it in a long time. That means it’s working. Right?

In this post, I will explain how I organize my Discord server for my close friends.

To begin, it's important to understand the dynamics of your friend group. We enjoy sharing various types of content, including photos of our pets, nature, memes, and outfits. We also exchange links for social media posts and music from Spotify to discover new songs. Additionally, we engage in casual conversations, discussing games, TV shows, venting about our losses, and celebrating our wins.

So, we reduced our Discord to four specific categories each with its own set of channels as follows:

• CHAT
  • #-general
  • #-gaming
  • #-media
  • #-vent
  • #-wins
• SHARE
  • #-nature
  • #-memes
  • #-music
  • #-fashion
  • #-food
  • #-pets
  • #-links
  • #-photos
• RESTRICTED ACCESS
  • #-moderators (private text channel)
• VOICE COMMS
  • #-voice-text

  • -Waiting Room (public voice channel)

  • -Ravioli Office (public voice channel)

  • -Squad Office (private voice channel)

That's quite a lot to capture, but together we did it. We have channels to chat, channels to share, channels to moderate, and channels to get together and play some games. It's super simple and serves all of the functions I thought about.

A few tips for cultivating a nice cozy space for you and your friends:

1. To start, rally around something: we all came together around gaming, considering that we first met each other while playing games back in high school. In the beginning, we had more gaming specific channels.
2. Add more and more channels as you notice people are super into something. I found my friends loved sharing random nature pics and facts so now we have a nature channel to encourage more sharing!
3. If you notice that a channel has gone inactive, consider archiving or deleting it. I am not a fan of keeping cluttered, unused channels around because they take up space and do not direct the conversation towards the most active channels.
4. Keep iterating. It takes time to find a vibe that captures everyone's needs. And even then, over time, the conversations change based on where we are at in life.
5. Less is more, you don’t need a channel for everything. Combine as many topics as you can to make more multi-purpose active channels.

If you are organizing your own Discord, I hope this post gives you some inspiration. Any questions or feedback- send me a Tweet (opens in a new tab).