Discord may be testing a Server Home tab and notes for friend requests

Discord appears to be testing two separate social features right now: a new Server Home tab for communities and a prompt that lets users attach a note to outgoing friend requests, according to posts from DiscordPreviews.

In a recent post, DiscordPreviews said Discord is surveying users about a possible Server Home tab that would show information about a server and its members. Before this, the account said Discord is also adding a system that lets people explain why they want to connect before sending a friend request, and that note would only be visible to the recipient.

From what I was able to deduce, the Server Home idea is still pretty early. According to DiscordPreviews, the survey covers a wide range of possible additions: activity leaderboards, top contributor callouts, birthday celebrations, polls, doodle boards, active voice calls, pinned messages, and upcoming events.

That sounds less like a brand-new tab for chatting and more like a catch-up page for server life.

Discord’s own support pages show the company already experimented with a Server Home beta years ago, describing it as a space at the top of the channel list where members could see a digest of interesting moments, before later saying the feature was being phased out in March 2023. So this new survey could be Discord revisiting an old idea with some changes.

The friend request note feature is pretty simple. It would give users a way to add a little context to a request, which is useful when the other person knows your handle but has no clue who you are.

Not everyone is sold on the friend request notes idea, though. Some users in the replies were quick to point out it opens another channel for spam, phishing links, and unsolicited pitches. Discord already lets you control who can send you friend requests in the first place, with options like Friends of Friends or Server Members only, so it’s not like there are no guardrails. But notes add a new layer that could easily get messy.

For PiunikaWeb readers, this is also the latest in a pretty steady run of Discord changes and experiments. We recently covered Discord’s warning notifications for Quest scripts, a new Voice Chat History feature spotted in development, and the company’s voice and video cutoff for older app versions tied to encryption changes.

For now, both of these look like tests, not confirmed launches. But if Discord does move ahead, one feature would give servers a more curated front page, while the other would make cold friend requests a little less awkward, at least that’s the idea.

We stand out from the tech-media crowd because we break news stories; we mainly bring you stuff that you won’t find anywhere in the mainstream tech media. Our stories have been picked up by some of the world’s most popular websites and media outlets—more info is available here.