In this article
A channel can have its own inbox. Switch it on and readers get a message button at the bottom of the channel, and what they write arrives in a place that belongs to the channel rather than in the private chats of whoever runs it.
Which solves a real problem, and creates a different one: an inbox exists whether or not anybody is reading it.
What you will be able to do
- check_circle Give readers a way to write without exposing a personal account.
- check_circle Choose between this and the four other ways they reach you.
- check_circle Decide whether to charge for a message.
- check_circle Share the reading with moderators.
The inbox belongs to the channel, which is the whole point — it can be read by whoever runs it today.
mark_chat_unread The problem this was built for
Before it existed, a channel that wanted to hear from anybody had one option: put a personal handle in the description. That works, and it means the person behind the channel has permanently published their private account to everybody who reads it, including the people they would rather not hear from.
It also does not survive a change of staff. The handle in the description belongs to a person, so when that person stops running the channel the contact route either follows them out or has to be edited and re-announced.
A channel inbox fixes both. The address belongs to the channel, the messages land somewhere separate from private conversations, and access can be handed to whoever is doing the job this month. It is an unglamorous improvement and a substantial one.
Four ways a reader can reach a channel
They are not variations of each other. Each one suits a different kind of message.
| What it is good for | Who can see it | What it costs you | |
|---|---|---|---|
| The channel inbox | Private questions, corrections, business enquiries — anything a reader would not say in public. | You and whoever you give access to. Nobody else in the audience. | Somebody has to read it. An inbox with a hundred unanswered messages is worse than no button at all. |
| Comments | Questions worth answering once where everybody can see the answer. | Everyone, permanently, including people who arrive months later. | It is a group underneath, with all of a group's problems: moderation, spam, arguments that have nothing to do with the post. |
| Your personal account | Almost nothing, once the channel is larger than your friends. | You, in the same list as your family and your bank. | It cannot be undone. The handle is in screenshots and forwards, and it stays reachable long after you change the description. |
| A bot | Structured requests — forms, orders, tickets, anything with fields. | Whoever runs the bot, which is a decision in itself. | Setup, and the impression it leaves. A bot with nobody behind it is a wall that readers learn to stop walking into. |
Ask whether the answer helps one person or everybody. That picks the route before anything else does.
toll Charging for a message
The inbox can carry a fee, paid in Stars, before a message goes through. It is presented as an anti-spam measure and it does work as one — there is no bulk approach to sending paid messages, so the automated noise stops.
What it also does is select for a particular kind of reader. A fee is not a filter on whether a message is worth reading; it is a filter on who is willing to pay to be heard, and those are different groups. The person with the correction you actually need, or the awkward question nobody else will ask, is the one most likely to close the screen.
So the honest way to use it is as a last resort rather than a default. Turn it on when the volume is genuinely unmanageable, set it low enough to be a speed bump rather than a gate, and say on the channel that it is there and why — a price appearing without explanation reads as a channel that has decided its readers are a nuisance.
chat What arrives, and what to do with it
Most of what comes in falls into three piles: questions already answered in a post, things worth answering privately, and things that ought to be a post because forty people are about to ask the same thing. The third pile is the reason this is worth reading rather than merely worth having.
A channel with an inbox learns what its readers do not understand, which is information a view count cannot give you. Treat a repeated question as an editorial note rather than as support work, and the inbox starts paying for the time it costs.
settings Turning it on
- Open the channel settings and enable direct messages The button appears for readers.
- Give access to the people who will answer Before the first message arrives.
- Leave it free to begin with A fee is for a volume problem you do not have yet.
- Say in the description who reads it And how long a reply takes.
- Send public questions to a post Private ones to the inbox.
- Turn it off rather than abandon it No button beats an unread one.
This page is the private route back to a channel. The curriculum step is the public one: how comments work, what running the attached group actually involves, and when a conversation belongs in the open.
At a glance
- 1Channel messages
Readers can write to the channel without your personal account.
- 2Share the inbox
Let moderators read and reply.
- 3Charging filters
A fee keeps out casual messages, including useful ones.
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