Discussions let you create focused conversations within a team or channel in Rocket.Chat. They are useful for breaking down larger topics into smaller, organized threads. Discussions appear in the sidebar under Discussions and are marked with the 
icon.
Every discussion must belong to a parent team or channel.
Example: If you have a team called Engineering-Team and a channel named Website-Development-Channel, you could create a discussion called Website-Landing-Page to keep all conversations about the landing page in one place.
Viewing and editing discussion details
To see or update a discussion’s settings:
Open the discussion.
In the header, select the Room Information icon.
Click Edit.
This opens the Room Information panel, where you can view and manage the discussion details.
Discussion details
The Room Information panel includes the following options:
Name: The discussion title, shown in the sidebar and used in search.
Topic: A short label displayed next to the header.
Announcement: A message shown at the top of the discussion for important reminders.
Description: A longer explanation of the discussion’s purpose.
Private: Restricts access to invited members only.
Read-only: Allows only users with permission to post. Others can read messages but not reply.
Archived : Closes the discussion to new messages. Archived discussions are hidden from search but remain available to admins through the Directory.
Password to access: Protects the discussion with a password. Members must enter the password before joining.
Advanced settings
In the Advanced settings section, you can further control behavior and permissions:
Hide system messages: Choose which automated system notifications (e.g., join/leave messages) are hidden.
Automatically prune old messages: Set the discussion to remove older messages automatically.
Override global retention policy: Apply custom retention rules for this discussion.
The following sub-topics explain how to create new discussions and how to manage existing ones.