What is a Linked roles?
Discord launched the “Linked roles” feature in mid-December 2022, which is an advanced application of the “Connections” feature. The “Connections” feature allows users to link their Discord account with other supported third-party accounts, and “Linked roles” combines the server’s role requirements with the “Connections” feature.
The icon for “Linked roles” is shown with a hyperlink symbol, as demonstrated in the figure below.
Visual Differences between linked role and normal role
Checking if a server has set up “Linked roles“
Since this is a new feature, most servers currently do not have it set up. To check if the server you’re in has set up “Linked roles”, click on the server name in the upper left corner. If you see “Linked roles”, it means that the server has set up this type of role.
Check if the server you’re in has set up “Linked roles”
Using my server as an example, after clicking “Linked roles”, you can view requirements for each linked roles.
linked roles that requires linking to a YouTube account
The “Demonstration Role 1” shown in the image above requires community members to link their Discord account to their YouTube account in order to obtain it.
After clicking on the desired linked role, follow the system’s instructions to verify requirements.
Link the necessary account to obtain the linked role
All “Linked roles” require system verification in order to obtain them. They cannot be manually given by administrators or moderators. After granting the linked role, a window will pop up, indicating which channels the linked role owner can participate in.
Role granted
How to set up “Linked Roles”?
With the launch of the “Linked Roles” feature, there is now a “Links” category in the role editing options.
To find this option, simply open “Server Settings”, then navigate to “Roles”, choose the role you want to set up, select “Links”, and finally click “Add requirement” to add the requirements for granting this linked role.
How to add link requirements for a role?
Currently Supported Third-Party Accounts
There are currently 18 platforms supported, and more may be added over time. Additionally, some applications (bots) can also be used as verification conditions, but the server must already have these applications installed for them to appear in the options, such as Collab.Land and Midjourney shown in the figure.
The currently supported platform accounts are as follows:
- Paypal
- Steam
- Tiktok
- eBay
- Crunchyroll
- PlayStation Network
- Spotify
- Xbox
- Battle.net
- Epic Games
- GitHub
- League of Legends
- Riot Games
- Twitch
- YouTube
Third-party account support
Requirements settings
Link quantity requirements
Each linked role can set up numerous linking requirements, and it can be set to require at least one linking requirement to be fulfilled in order to grant the linked role, or require all requirements to be fulfilled before granting the linked role.
If you need to set up a lot of linking requirements, it may be a good idea to distribute these requirements across different linked roles. Otherwise, if too many linking requirements are concentrated in the same linked role, it will lose its identification function.
Linked account requirement settings
Each platform supports different linking requirements, some are simple and can only verify whether the account is linked or not, such as YouTube.
Some platforms allow additional requirements to be set, such as Twitter, which has three additional requirements that can be set besides whether the account is linked or not, including “account age”, “followers”, and “tweets”.
requirement settings
Benefits of Linked roles
One of Discord’s features is the ability to achieve segmentation within a server using roles. However, until now, it has only been possible to recognize external segmentation requirement through manual assignment or third-party application assistance. By combining the “Linked roles” and “Connections” functions, personal accounts can have higher identification capabilities through the power of the system. This feature can greatly enhance the effectiveness of personal socialization on Discord, while maintaining anonymity and allowing users to choose whether or not to disclose their information on other social platforms. Its future development and applications are worth looking forward to.
When a server sets up specific linking requirement, such as requiring a linked roles from Twitter, more detailed information about the linked account can be seen in the individual profile. For example, in my personal account, the Twitter account information at the bottom shows the account application date, number of tweets published, and number of followers.
Discord’s third-party linked account information in personal profiles
