Hey everyone! I know that the SDA Discussion forum is not the perfect place for this, but these forums are currently the main ones used by the entire community and this felt like it needed something a little better than Pastebin.



You might notice soon when I'm in stream chats that I have a little wrench next to my name, and this means I am on Twitch's staff. Twitch sees speedrunning as an important community on its site, and they want to give it better attention than ever before. I have been brought on to help the site with managing speedrunning partnerships, giving the community more opportunities to grow, and strengthening the relationship between speedrunners and the site. I love this community and want to help it continue to grow and accomplish amazing things, and now I will be able to better serve you and use Twitch's resources to make more dreams a reality. Since I'm sure this announcement set off a red flag for some of you, I'd first like to clear up what this doesn't mean before diving into more details about what it does mean.



What this doesn't mean



WE ESPORTS NOW! YEA BABY! No, seriously, if something like this jumped into your mind at all, erase it immediately. The vast majority of the speedrunning community to this point has shown that it does not want to head down the e-sports road, and I'm right there with you. There was very little regular participation in SRL Seasons, and I probably don't even need to bring up any details about the Machinima fiasco. I don't believe that speedrunning lends itself to anything resembling a traditional e-sports format, and I'm not going to attempt to have us grow that way. It's been pretty clear throughout the years that some of the main strengths of speedrunning growth are in the awesome community that loves being together and the runners who make the magic happen.



I'll also quickly clarify what I'm not controlling for Twitch regarding the speedrunning community so that you know not to address me about these things. I am not the emotes guy. Partners with subscription buttons will have to do the usual process for those. I do not have the final word on runners becoming a Twitch partner. If you are interested in becoming a partner or having a subscription button, I would recommend you still talk to me since I will be working with the department that oversees this and will have a pretty good idea of your situation, but because I don't necessarily have the final word, I will not be responsible for any rejections that happen. I have nothing to do with any chat/tech problems on Twitch. You should still be messaging Twitch Support if you are having issues with something. I won't be able to help with problems like this at all.



What this DOES mean



As I said before, I will be giving the community more opportunities to grow. You will probably be seeing some new content popping up that runners will have the chance to participate in, especially after SGDQ is over. You will be seeing more activity out of the SDA channel that was traditionally only used for Games Done Quick marathons, and there will likely be a new community-focused channel launched after SGDQ to help serve individual runners and community-based events better. We're not going to have a huge overhaul happen overnight, but there will be new things that are being tried once in a while, and most of the time I will try to approach the entire community in the best way possible to gauge interest so that we don't have anything happen that people aren't supporting. The way the daily streaming scene works won't be changing in the long run, but there will be more and better ways for you to support your speedfriends and come together as a community.



I will be able to better help you with promotion if you wish, too. If you are putting on an event that you feel should have front page exposure, you can now come directly to me and I can help take care of it, rather than sending an email to Twitch and anxiously waiting for a reply for the next few days. Again, I won't be able to instantly give you partner or sub on a whim, but if this is a goal of yours, you can discuss it with me and I can give you a good idea of what you'll need to do to accomplish it, as opposed to sending an application and having no understanding of how it will go. If you are organizing an event, you can come to me for help or ask for any help that Twitch can provide if you feel their inclusion would be beneficial. If you simply have ideas you want to share about the speedrunning community or things Twitch could do to help it and you never felt there was a good place to put them before, I'm your go-to guy for that now.





I've been in the speedrunning scene for over five years at this point, and I've seen the marathons grow from shoving 15-20 people in Uyama's basement to having about 500 people take over a hotel. Every time we plan the next event, some of the organizers become worried about "losing the community feeling", but I still have yet to see that happen, and don't intend to as I try to help us continue to grow and become better. I strongly love the speedrunning community, and I feel we can keep reaching out to more people and have them share our passion with us so that we become even stronger and happier. Thanks to everyone who bothered reading all of this. I know it was pretty lengthy. I'll see you all around, and I hope to continue having your support as I help support the community.

Thread title: Hey everyone! I know that the SDA Discussion forum is not the perfect place for this, but these forums are currently the main ones used by the entire community and this felt like it needed something a little better than Pastebin. You might notice soon when I'm in stream chats that I have a little wrench next to my name, and this means I am on Twitch's staff. Twitch sees speedrunning as an important community on its site, and they want to give it better attention than ever before. I have been brought on to help the site with managing speedrunning partnerships, giving the community more opportunities to grow, and strengthening the relationship between speedrunners and the site. I love this community and want to help it continue to grow and accomplish amazing things, and now I will be able to better serve you and use Twitch's resources to make more dreams a reality. Since I'm sure this announcement set off a red flag for some of you, [b]I'd first like to clear up what this doesn't mean[/b] before diving into more details about what it does mean. [size="24"][b]What this doesn't mean[/b][/size] WE ESPORTS NOW! YEA BABY! No, seriously, if something like this jumped into your mind at all, erase it immediately. The vast majority of the speedrunning community to this point has shown that it does not want to head down the e-sports road, and I'm right there with you. There was very little regular participation in SRL Seasons, and I probably don't even need to bring up any details about the Machinima fiasco. I don't believe that speedrunning lends itself to anything resembling a traditional e-sports format, and I'm not going to attempt to have us grow that way. It's been pretty clear throughout the years that some of the main strengths of speedrunning growth are in the awesome community that loves being together and the runners who make the magic happen. I'll also quickly clarify what I'm not controlling for Twitch regarding the speedrunning community so that you know not to address me about these things. [b]I am not the emotes guy.[/b] Partners with subscription buttons will have to do the usual process for those. [b]I do not have the final word on runners becoming a Twitch partner.[/b] If you are interested in becoming a partner or having a subscription button, I would recommend you still talk to me since I will be working with the department that oversees this and will have a pretty good idea of your situation, but because I don't necessarily have the final word, I will not be responsible for any rejections that happen. [b]I have nothing to do with any chat/tech problems on Twitch.[/b] You should still be messaging Twitch Support if you are having issues with something. I won't be able to help with problems like this at all. [size="24"][b]What this DOES mean[/b][/size] As I said before, I will be giving the community more opportunities to grow. You will probably be seeing some new content popping up that runners will have the chance to participate in, especially after SGDQ is over. You will be seeing more activity out of the SDA channel that was traditionally only used for Games Done Quick marathons, and there will likely be a new community-focused channel launched after SGDQ to help serve individual runners and community-based events better. We're not going to have a huge overhaul happen overnight, but there will be new things that are being tried once in a while, and most of the time I will try to approach the entire community in the best way possible to gauge interest so that we don't have anything happen that people aren't supporting. The way the daily streaming scene works won't be changing in the long run, but there will be more and better ways for you to support your speedfriends and come together as a community. I will be able to better help you with promotion if you wish, too. If you are putting on an event that you feel should have front page exposure, you can now come directly to me and I can help take care of it, rather than sending an email to Twitch and anxiously waiting for a reply for the next few days. Again, I won't be able to instantly give you partner or sub on a whim, but if this is a goal of yours, you can discuss it with me and I can give you a good idea of what you'll need to do to accomplish it, as opposed to sending an application and having no understanding of how it will go. If you are organizing an event, you can come to me for help or ask for any help that Twitch can provide if you feel their inclusion would be beneficial. If you simply have ideas you want to share about the speedrunning community or things Twitch could do to help it and you never felt there was a good place to put them before, I'm your go-to guy for that now. I've been in the speedrunning scene for over five years at this point, and I've seen the marathons grow from shoving 15-20 people in Uyama's basement to having about 500 people take over a hotel. Every time we plan the next event, some of the organizers become worried about "losing the community feeling", but I still have yet to see that happen, and don't intend to as I try to help us continue to grow and become better. I strongly love the speedrunning community, and I feel we can keep reaching out to more people and have them share our passion with us so that we become even stronger and happier. Thanks to everyone who bothered reading all of this. I know it was pretty lengthy. I'll see you all around, and I hope to continue having your support as I help support the community.