The idea of channels may be a way to create some order and avoid overloading the network,
but I believe the Magnetico way is simpler: A single index table only.

It can be divided by categories (audio, video, etc), OSs (windows, linux, etc), and use tags.

Letting the users create their own channels is a democratic idea but leaves room for redundancy and fragmentation.
Asides resembling IRC, I'm not a real fan of publicizing data in groups, but rather in one global database.

you do not need to be in any channels to access the files others are sharing on the fopnu network.

the channels are more for socializing.