Platform: Discord

Created in: 2023

Size: 1,500+ members

About the Space

KQED is a local public radio station in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. In 2023, the team behind their popular call-in news show Forum decided to create a digital space to bring their local listeners together into conversation with one another. Journalist and steward of the space, Francesca F., explains, “[We started the digital space on Discord] to see if we could bring the compassionate, curious, and civically-minded conversations that happen on the radio into a virtual community of neighbors… our goal online is to connect people and bring them into a genuine neighbor-to-neighbor relationship. As a radio show, we get this beautiful interaction with people who call or write to us directly, but they don’t get as much of an opportunity to build relationships with one another and find those connections off the air.”

The show covers topics ranging from “serious things like home insurance regulation, or local elections, or how AI technology is being applied – to fun stuff like where to find the best Bay Area tacos, or conversations with local book authors.” The digital space reflects that range, with channels where “people can chat about the show’s daily news topics” as well as lighter ones, like the popular pets channel.

“A lot of online spaces discourage conversation about politics because it can be so divisive, but for our space it wouldn’t be living up to our values to make politics ‘off limits’ when that’s a huge part of what we’re sharing information about as a public media station. That led to some challenges, as there have been moments where people who have fundamentally different beliefs get into disagreements… we're experimenting with how we can still talk about those things, and hopefully enrich one another’s perspectives in a respectful way online.”

— Francesca F., Group Admin

Now about 1 year in, the space has ~300 people who are “regularly on the server and more active in conversations.” Francesca reflects: “Getting to know the people who log in, and really invest their time, and get to know one another has felt like a cool milestone. We’ve started to see community members stepping up and proposing things to bring people together, like, “Hey let’s go to trivia night or meet up for coffee offline…”

Top tips from admin Francesca F.

For anyone looking to create a digital public space like the KQED Forum’s Discord server…

1. Create resources to help people get familiar with your community or platform

When starting out, Francesca says “we chose to build our community on Discord, because it allows for text-based conversation as well as audio streaming. But it isn't a platform that all of our radio show listeners were familiar with.” Francesca and the Forum team created a guide to Discord for their show’s website, and now use radio show announcements to direct people there if they need help finding (and understanding) the Discord community.

You can check out Forum’s “Welcome To Discord” guide here.

2. Write clear community guidelines, and enforce them transparently

Because Forum’s Discord community members enjoy spirited discussion of current events topics, Francesca says “we've had to define our posting guidelines, or rules of engagement” for conversation. By making behavioral expectations super clear upfront, it became much easier to moderate the rare heated discussion between community members. At first, Francesca modeled low-stakes interventions, saying “Hey! This is a friendly mod reminder to remember our Community Rule #1 which says…” and now community members will do this kind of gentle moderation on their own when things seem like they're getting heated. “I still take the lead on serious moderation issues, but having clear rules that everyone understands has helped the community to self-regulate,” she says.

3. Don't forget the fun!