Goodbye Slack, hello Discord and more community

I’m going to get meta for a few minutes here, and get up on my soap box. But first, let me get the TLDR out of the way: Blizzard Watch closed its Slack workspace last night and has moved to using Discord for work, starting immediately. That means you’ll see us in there all the time, working, chatting, complaining, theorizing over our latest TV obsession, everything. And if you’re a Patreon supporter of any level, you’ll have a super visible way to ask your questions and get more value out of your contributions to the site.

Now for the soap box…

Why we did this, and why it matters on a deeper level

During the opening ceremony at BlizzCon Mike Morhaime said that BlizzCon isn’t just about the games and announcements, it’s about the relationships and community we’re in. He said it’s a community of shared values, passions, and is a kind and welcoming group of people; the kind where everyone has a friend at BlizzCon. This was reflected clearly in the rainbow Blizzard pins worn by the staff throughout the convention, something many of us were deeply moved by. Mike made a point that in all the craziness of this world, we can have positive impact by being part of the community and keeping to its values. You can watch the clip starting here.

That really struck a chord with me, and got me thinking. What is our role in that community? How is Blizzard Watch a part of that? We consider ourselves a safe place to talk about games like adults and not get harassed and belittled for our differing opinions. We try to be as welcoming to the newest player as much as we are to the dedicated raider. In thinking more about it, I realized that Mike was expressing exactly what we had hoped for when we started this site, and in many ways is exactly why this site exists. It’s by and for the community, and at its core it is a good community, full of wonderful people.

So Blizzard Watch is getting back to our community roots and will strive to live up to the dedication to the community that Mike displayed.

After BlizzCon was over, Dan O’Halloran, who on a personal note is one of my most trusted advisers and has been instrumental in my own growth over the years, asked us in our private chat if we maybe should keep using Discord for work stuff, and keep using it to connect with the community and foster its growth. It took all of a half hour to reach consensus and agree that this was a good move. So the decision was made and we’ve moved our entire operation into Discord.

We’re looking forward to what this means: more interaction with you all, more LFGs, more Q&As, more lolcats, more community. You’ve got hundreds of friends waiting to talk about what brings us all together. That’s never started nor ended with BlizzCon; and in that the question I asked myself when I heard Mike’s opening remarks is answered. Blizzard Watch can facilitate this great community and be part of its growth — just as much as WoW Insider was for the first decade of WoW, so will we be for its future.

Come and join us, we’re looking forward to hanging out with you.