Discord, the social messaging service that helped to displace old-school internet forums, now wants to bring them back. Today, the company announced Forum Channels, which are exactly what you’d imagine: A dedicated space to have conversations without the worry of a fast-paced chat feed. You’ll find them right below your usual Discord channels. When creating a forum, you’ll be able to restrict posting permissions and set guidelines for the conversation. Crucially, they’ll also be compatible with Discord’s AutoMod, which can help to clean up discussions. (Moderation was always the downfall of a poorly-run forum.)
While it’s nice to have the concept returning, it’s funny to see Discord explaining the concept of forums to younger users. Yes kids, back in our day, we had to furiously refresh web pages to discover the latest reply to our Halo lore theories. Discord has often been framed as a return to the messaging blitz of IRC, paired together with real-time voice chat. So it only makes sense that it’ll be responsible for helping us relive the glory days of forums.