Telm in forum topics and channel comments

1Forum groups with topics

A forum group is still a supergroup, so Telm connects to it like any other group and sees messages from all topics. Spam detection, content filters, warnings and bans work the same wherever the message was posted.

Two things to know: settings and rules are per-group, not per-topic — you can't set different strictness for different topics yet. And the bot's own messages (welcome, CAPTCHA prompts, notices) are posted to the group's default topic rather than the topic where the trigger happened.

2Channels: posts vs comments

Telm does not moderate posts published in the channel itself — those are written by the channel's owners, and the bot doesn't process channel posts at all.

What actually attracts spam is the comment section. Comments live in the linked discussion group, and that's a real group Telm can join and protect: add the bot to the discussion group, and every comment goes through the normal moderation pipeline.

3The comments moderation switch

Comments under channel posts get their own strictness setting — standard, strict, or off — separate from regular group messages. It lives in Moderation settings (dashboard or the bot's settings menu).

With comments moderation off, Telm stops punishing commenters but keeps observing: comments still appear in analytics and the moderation journal, so you can watch before enforcing — the monitoring-mode philosophy, applied to comments.

Auto-forwarded channel posts that open each comment thread are recognized as the channel's own content and are never treated as spam.

4Paid access for channels

Monetization works for channels as well as groups: enable paid access on a channel, and Telm handles join requests, payment offers and expiry the same way it does for groups.