First Draft Club

Are Channels Still the Future of Farcaster? (🧵)

I used to think so. Now? Not so sure.

Back in April 2024, spam was everyone’s problem on Farcaster. Then the channel overhaul happened and shifted the spam burden to hosts. If your channel is full of spam, it’s on you: Gate better. Moderate harder. Ban faster. 

It’s exhausting and most channel hosts have ignored it or automated it, confusing new folks and aggravating old ones who can’t cast into channels freely. 

Fast forward to April 2025: spammers got smarter. The current model aggressively flags most users as low-value. 80% of casts are orphaned—no replies, no recasts, no likes. Worse, casting into channels doesn’t trigger spam labels, which flipped the whole dynamic and spammers gravitate to casting into some channels hoping for visibility.

Pi-chi.eth (she/her) Artist /animeoutcasts
Hosting: /sakura /kyoto /momiji  /anime-manga /farcasterunion

https://portrait.so/pichi

These are my questions for all of you: 

	•	To gate or not to gate?
	•	Is anyone even posting in channels?
	•	Does anyone scroll them?
	•	Are channels just for farmers (and not the FarmVille kind)?
	•	Can a community survive on a single pinned cast?

Is anyone even posting in channels?

When I check my own home feed, it’s a mix of casts into channels and casts to the home feed.  I tend to cast into channels so that folks don’t get a spam label if I miss their reply, but I’m unsure if others give it that much thought or prefer to let the algorithm sort it all out. 

Since channels are low priority, it feels as if most people have given up on them.

Does anyone scroll channels anymore?

Today, there is no algorithmic boost for casting into channels and channels are reverse chronological order, which has made many of them boring and I think few people scroll them at all (probably the same number of people who read all the comments on a cast before replying). 

Cura is working hard to change this with a dedicated channel app, but this still feels like a Warpcast issue at its core. Channel hosts have little to no control in Warpcast itself and must rely on 3rd party tools to solve issues and it shows.

Farville 🧑‍🌾

Channels are for Farmers (and not the /farville kind)


I’ve muted a ton to channels. Whenever I check on them, they are full of AI slop and spam. I can’t tell if the hosts have given up, haven’t been paying attention to the changes, or don’t care. But it’s obvious that some farmers have gravitated towards certain channels and since the spam algorithm can’t touch them there, many channels have become spam wastelands.

Communities can’t thrive without guidelines, and one pinned cast doesn’t cut it


We can’t build community without rules and guidelines. Vibes just don’t cut it. It also feels terrible to hide posts or ban people without explanation. Key features (warn and hide, channel rules) were removed during the overhaul and I’m not sure we can build real community without them. 

The answer is not a frame or a pinned cast. We need more built into Warpcast natively or more room to expand on the purpose of a channel. 

Without communities, channels are just topics. And topics can get bring fast. Channels with active hosts want to pin new content daily. We want to create space for interaction, but it’s an uphill battle at the moment. 

Channels currently feel like a placeholder and I feel stuck in limbo too: Unsure how to move forward, unsure how to use them best, relying on 3rd parties just to make them somewhat useable…

To gate or not to gate?

Gating was crucial over the summer and fall and definitely keeps the majority of farmers out of specific channels, but now I see fewer and fewer posts in the channels I used to frequent. Sure there isn’t as much spam, but there isn’t much of anything else. Do we still need gates? Should most channels be public unless there is a good reason to keep the gate? I’m struggling with what to do with most of my channels. Many are in public mode now to experiment.

Gate, but make it easy to join.
Yes, I love finding the right channel
Yes, I am actively visiting them and Warpcast mobile has some of my most visited up top.