Welcome

The first thirty seconds

Someone who joins a server decides within a minute whether to stay. In that time they see a channel list they do not understand and look for something telling them what to do. Welcome bots exist to fill that gap.

They do three things worth keeping apart: greeting, placing and seeing off. Greeting is cosmetic: a message, often with an image. Placing is the actual work: assign a role, open up access, point the way. Seeing off is for you, not for the person leaving: a leave message in a staff channel tells you whether someone is quietly driving people away.

How to spot a good one

It assigns a role on join. Without an autorole every newcomer stays on @everyone, and you end up with either an open server or one where nobody can see anything.

It can wait. A role that only arrives after five minutes or after verification keeps out raid bots that join and leave by the second.

It knows variables. Name, member count, join date, server name. Without them every greeting is the same sentence, and people notice.

Its image is yours. If it generates welcome cards, check that you can replace background and font. Otherwise your server permanently advertises a stranger's default artwork.

Permissions that matter

Send Messages, Attach Files for images, Use External Emoji, and for role assignment, Manage Roles. That last one is the only far-reaching permission in this category, and it comes with a trap: a bot can only assign roles positioned below its own. When an autorole silently does nothing, that is almost always why.

The join trigger also needs the privileged Server Members intent. The developer enables that, not you, but it explains why some bots only start noticing joins after an update.

Administrator is not required. A welcome bot with Administrator is a bot that could delete your server because you asked it to say hello.

Where people go wrong

The first mistake is greeting in the wrong channel. In general chat, a wave of twenty joins buries every conversation. Give it its own channel.

The second is a message that asks for nothing. "Welcome to the server!" helps no one. Name exactly one next step: read the rules, pick a role, introduce yourself.

The third is public leave messages. They turn every departure into an event and invite commentary nobody needs. Send them to staff.