Starting a server

A server is a place with its own channels, its own members and its own rules — what most people mean when they say “our chat”. You do not need permission to make one, and the limit is a hundred servers per account, counting the ones you joined as well as the ones you started. A new account starts lower and is raised as it settles in.

Making one

1. Press the + at the bottom of the server list, down the left.
2. Choose Create. The same dialog offers Join, which is what to use when somebody has sent you an invite instead.
3. Give it a name. That is the only thing asked for, and it can be changed afterwards.

Creating a server means agreeing that what happens on it follows the community guidelines. You are the person responsible for it, which is worth knowing before you invite five hundred people into it.

What you get

A new server arrives with one text channel called General and a set of default permissions that apply to everyone in it. From Server Settings you can add channels and categories, upload an icon, add custom emoji, and set up roles.

Two of those are worth doing early, before the room fills up:

• Invite people with a link you can revoke rather than one that lives forever.
• Set up roles while there are few enough members that a mistake is easy to undo.

A server is not a group

A group chat is a conversation with several people in it. A server is a place with channels, roles and moderation tools. If what you want is five friends and one thread, a group is less to look after; if you want somewhere with rooms for different subjects and people who can moderate it, that is a server.

You can be in both, and you can start with a group and make a server later — though the messages do not move across, so it is worth deciding roughly which one you are before a year of conversation lands in it.