How to moderate a Telegram forum topic by topic

A Telegram forum is not one chat but a dozen, each living by its own laws. As long as the settings are shared across the group, you have to choose: strangle the marketplace with a ban on listings, or let ads through in announcements.

In Scarabeus each topic can be configured separately.

Where to set it up#

A topic selector appears in the Moderation section. By default you are editing the settings shared by all topics; pick a specific topic and you are editing its own.

Topic settings are part of the Base plan; on Limited only the chat-wide settings are available.

A topic gets a full set of its own#

A topic is not a patch on the shared settings but a complete set of its own: its own enabled blocks, its own rules, its own punishment chains, its own AI moderation topics and rules.

That is deliberate. The "patch" model is more compact but impossible to work with: looking at a topic, you cannot see what actually applies in it until you also open the shared settings and add the two together in your head.

Shared settings are the mandatory minimum#

The chat settings do not go anywhere: a message in a topic passes both the shared check and its topic's check. The practical consequence is simple —

a topic can only be stricter than the forum, never softer.

Hence the working principle: put into the shared settings what is unacceptable anywhere, and add local house rules in the topics on top of that base.

Into the shared settings: AI moderation scam topics, phrase sets about fraud, a blocklist of dangerous domains, service messages.

Into the topics: everything that depends on the place. A ban on listings in "Discussion". A ban on links in "Announcements". Milder punishment chains in "Off-topic".

A common mistake is trying to make one topic freer than the rest by softening its settings. That will not work: the shared check still runs first. If you need leniency somewhere, remove the rule from the shared settings and add it to the topics that need it.

The "General" topic#

Telegram creates it itself when topics are switched on, and it is special:

• it holds the entire chat history from before topics existed;
• everything sent without a topic lands in it;
• it cannot be deleted, only hidden.

In the dashboard it behaves like an ordinary topic, with settings of its own. But remember that it is the "everything else" bucket: General's settings effectively apply to messages nobody filed anywhere.

Separately, messages written before topics were enabled belong to no topic at all. The logs have a filter value of their own for them so they do not get mixed in with General.

Logs and spend by topic#

The moderation and activity logs can be filtered by topic — you can look at one branch without wading through the rest.

AI moderation spend is visible per topic too: how many dollars and how many messages went on that particular branch over thirty days. It is immediately clear which topic eats the budget — and that is the one to configure separately: raise the minimum message length or trim the rule set.

The order to set things up in#

1. Configure the shared rules: only what is forbidden across the whole forum.
2. Open the most troublesome topic and add local rules on top.
3. A week later, look at the log filtered to that topic.
4. Repeat for the other topics — but only where it is genuinely needed.

You do not have to give every topic its own settings: a topic without them simply lives by the shared ones, and that is a perfectly normal state for most branches.

What to put into the forum's shared settings is covered separately: how to protect a Telegram group from spam.