---
aliases: ["Set up community Discord structure"]
Is A: Task
Belongs to: "[[25q2]]"
Status: Done
Owner: "[[person-luca-rossi]]"
---
# Set up community Discord structure

The newsletter audience had been requesting a community space for over a year. After evaluating options (Slack, Circle, Discord, custom forum), Discord was chosen for its familiarity with the developer audience, free tier capabilities, and strong bot ecosystem. This task set up the Discord server structure, moderation rules, and initial content to seed the community before a soft launch to engaged subscribers.

The community strategy was deliberately conservative: start with a small, invite-only group of the most engaged subscribers, establish healthy norms, and then gradually open access. The goal was quality of conversations over quantity of members.

## Acceptance criteria

- [x] Create the Discord server with appropriate channel structure (introductions, general, ask-anything, content-feedback, off-topic)
- [x] Write community guidelines and pin them in the welcome channel
- [x] Set up moderation bots and assign moderation roles
- [x] Create a "beta invite" list of the top 200 most engaged subscribers
- [x] Draft the launch announcement email for the beta invite group

## Notes

- The beta launch went well -- 87 of 200 invited subscribers joined (43.5% acceptance rate), and initial conversations were high-quality. The invite-only framing created a sense of exclusivity that motivated engagement.
- The "content-feedback" channel has been particularly valuable. Subscribers provide early input on newsletter drafts, essentially serving as a focus group. This directly improved several editions.
- [[person-sara-ricci]] volunteered to moderate the community alongside her editing role, which has worked well given the manageable size.
