Enable Community on a Discord server: requirements and benefits

Every new Discord server starts out as a private server among friends. As soon as you want more, such as onboarding for new members, announcement channels other servers can follow or one day a spot in server discovery, there is no way around the Community feature. It is free and switched on in a few minutes.

The switch also comes with obligations, though: a rules channel, a minimum verification level and a filter for explicit content. In this guide you learn what you unlock, what Discord requires and how to prepare the requirements with Lizbot so the switch goes through without surprises.

What the Community feature unlocks

With Community enabled, your server gets a set of tools that regular servers don't have:

• Onboarding: New members answer a few questions when they join, get matching channels and roles and see a Server Guide with their first steps. This replaces the old Welcome Screen.
• Announcement channels: Posts in them can be published, and other servers can follow the channel. Updates then automatically land there as well.
• Forum channels: Instead of an endless chat you get posts with their own title and tags, ideal for support, suggestions or clips.
• Stage channels: Stages for talks, Q&A sessions and events where only selected people speak.
• Server Insights: Statistics on growth, activity and how well new members stick around. Depending on the server size, Discord shows a different number of reports.
• Discovery: Above a certain size and minimum age, your server can appear in Discord's server discovery. Discord shows you the current requirements in the server settings under Discovery.

Other Discord offerings, for example around monetization, also require a Community server. For most servers, though, onboarding, announcements and forums are the real reason to switch.

Is the switch worth it for your server?

A quick decision guide:

Important: Community does not automatically mean public. Your server stays reachable only through invites until you explicitly enable it for Discovery.

The requirements: what Discord asks for before enabling

When you switch it on, Discord checks three things and suggests suitable values:

• Verification level at least Low: Members need a verified email address before they can chat. For public servers Medium makes more sense, in which case an account must also have been registered for at least five minutes.
• Explicit media content filter: Images and videos from all members are scanned for explicit content. Discord sets this filter to the strictest option when you enable Community.
• Rules channel: a channel that holds your server rules or guidelines. Discord shows it to new members in a prominent place.
• Community updates channel: This is where Discord sends notices for admins and moderators, for example about new features or changed policies. This channel should only be visible to your team.

On top of that come two recommendations Discord makes in the last step: default notifications set to mentions only, and no moderation permissions for the @everyone role. You should accept both. Otherwise a large server where every message triggers a notification quickly loses members who mute or leave it.

Community servers are also held visibly to Discord's Community Guidelines. When enabling Community you confirm that you know them. Read them once, you can find them at discord.com/guidelines. What they mean for you as an owner in practice is summed up in the guide Community Guidelines for server owners.

1. Prepare the rules channel and the team channel

Create the channels before you start the setup. Then you don't have to improvise inside it.

For the rules channel, for example #rules: everyone may see it, but only the team and bots may write. Deny @everyone the Send Messages permission there. For community updates, create a channel like #mod-updates in your team category, where @everyone is denied View Channels.

If you want to build the whole server with Lizbot, the order matters. The server builder creates categories, channels, roles and permissions, including a rules channel. In the dashboard you find it under Server templates, in Discord via /build preview and /build apply. All 12 templates are included in the Free plan. Details are in the guide Use a server template and on the Templates page.

If your server is not a Community server yet, the builder creates forum, announcement and stage channels from the template as regular text or voice channels and points this out beforehand in the preview. For the full template, create only the two required channels by hand (or let the setup create them), enable Community and build with the builder afterwards. If you have already built, you can later convert a text channel into an announcement channel in the channel settings.

2. Write rules and have them confirmed with a button

Discord only requires that a rules channel exists. What it says and whether members read it is up to you. A few clear, short rules work better than a wall of clauses. You'll find more detailed templates in the guide Write Discord server rules; to get started, something like this is enough:

```

1. Be respectful. No insults, no hate.
2. No spam and no self-promotion without permission.
3. Keep content on topic, NSFW is not allowed.
4. Don't share other people's personal data.
5. Follow the team's instructions. Sort out problems via a ticket.

```

With the Lizbot module Rules acceptance, this becomes a message with a button. The module is included in the Free plan but off by default. Here is how to set it up:

1. In the dashboard, open Modules and switch on Rules acceptance in the Protection group.
2. Choose the Rules channel, ideally the same one you are about to set in Discord.
3. Choose the Role after accepting, usually your member role that unlocks the other channels. Without a role, Lizbot only counts who has confirmed.
4. Enter the Title and Rules. Via Template you start with a ready-made rule set, such as General, Gaming, Family friendly or Business / customers, and adjust it afterwards.
5. Click Save and then Publish.

Lizbot posts the rules with the Accept rules button. Whoever clicks gets the role and a short confirmation only they can see. In the dashboard you see the current Version and how many members have accepted this version.

If you change the text later, the version goes up automatically on the next Update, and Lizbot edits the existing message instead of posting a new one. If Ask to confirm again after changes is switched on, Lizbot removes the role from everyone step by step. Whoever wants to keep access confirms the new version. This option suits important changes, such as new rules on advertising or age limits. For a corrected typo, better leave it off.

The role from the rules button must sit below the Lizbot role and must not have dangerous permissions such as Administrator or Manage Roles, otherwise Lizbot refuses to assign it. How to build a clean role hierarchy is covered in the guide Set up Discord roles.

3. Enable Community in Discord

Now comes the actual switch. You need the Manage Server permission for it; as the owner you have it anyway.

1. Open the server menu at the top left and go to Server Settings.
2. In the sidebar, under Community, choose Enable Community and start the setup.
3. Safety check: confirm the verified email requirement and the scanning of media content from all members.
4. Basics: choose your rules channel and the community updates channel. Discord offers to create both for you if you don't have them yet.
5. Finishing touches: accept the recommendations for notifications on mentions only and for removing moderation permissions from @everyone. Agree to the Community Guidelines and finish.

Afterwards new sections appear in the server settings, such as the Community Overview, Onboarding and Server Insights. In the overview you can change the selected channels at any time and also disable the Community feature again.

4. Align onboarding and verification

Discord's onboarding and verification through a bot don't rule each other out, but you should decide who takes on which job:

• Onboarding sorts new members by interests and shows them matching channels. For this, Discord requires a minimum number of default channels that @everyone can see, some of which they can also write in. The onboarding setup shows you the exact numbers. How to set up questions, default channels and roles is explained in the guide Set up Discord onboarding.
• Lizbot verification or the rules button assign the member role that unlocks the rest of the server. This keeps simple bot accounts out, especially with a minimum account age.

A proven split: without onboarding, new members first see only the rules and welcome channels, confirm the rules with the Lizbot button or verify, and then receive the member role. If you use onboarding, the default channels stay open for @everyone, and the member role only unlocks additional areas, such as media channels or voice. Members pick up interest and ping roles in onboarding or from a role menu. How verification works is explained in the guide Set up Discord verification, and the matching greeting is covered in Discord welcome message.

5. Use the new channel types

Now it's worth looking at the channels that only become possible with Community:

• Turn #announcements into an announcement channel. Partner servers can follow it, and your members see news where they are already active. How publishing and following work in detail is covered in Set up a Discord announcement channel.
• Replace an overflowing #support chat with a forum with tags like "Question", "Bug" and "Solved", as described in the guide Set up a Discord forum channel. For confidential matters a ticket system remains the better choice.
• Schedule talks or community evenings in a stage channel where only speakers talk.

If you build the server with the Lizbot builder only now, it creates these channel types exactly as the template intends. If you want to roll back an earlier build, /build undo removes everything the last build created. If the builder cleans up old channels during a rebuild, the rules channel, the community updates channel and the safety notifications channel stay protected so your Community settings don't break. Also exclusive to community servers is the media channel, which collects clips, fan art and screenshots as a gallery.

What changes for members afterwards

At first glance little changes for existing members. They will notice a few things, though:

• Anyone without a verified email address can only chat again after verifying it.
• Uploaded images and videos go through the explicit content filter.
• If default notifications are set to mentions, this applies to everyone who hasn't chosen their own setting for your server. Anyone who has set something themselves keeps it.
• New members see onboarding when they join, as soon as you have set it up and switched it on.
• The rules channel is linked in a prominent place, for example in the Server Guide.

It's best to announce the switch briefly in your announcement channel and explain why everyone should confirm the rules once now.

Checklist

• Rules channel exists, everyone sees it, only team and bots write
• Community updates channel sits in the hidden team category
• Rules are short, numbered and can be confirmed with the Lizbot button
• Member role sits below the Lizbot role and has no team permissions
• Verification level at least Low, Medium for public servers
• Default notifications set to mentions only
• @everyone has no moderation permissions
• Onboarding is set up, default channels are visible to newcomers
• Announcement, forum or stage channels are used where they help

Common mistakes

• Public updates channel: Discord's notices for admins don't belong in front of all members. Hide the channel.
• Rules channel where everyone writes: The rules scroll out of sight, and the discussion ends up in the wrong place.
• Rules button without a role: Lizbot then counts confirmations but doesn't unlock anything. If the rules are meant to control access, choose a role.
• Re-confirmation for every little thing: Anyone who loses access because of a typo gets annoyed. Only use the option for real rule changes.
• Builder before enabling Community: Forums and announcements are then created as regular text channels. Enable first, then build.
• Onboarding shows hidden channels: If the default channels are only visible with the member role, newcomers see almost nothing after onboarding.