Twitch recently rolled out a new, shiny feature named Communities. This is basically a new directory to find your favourite breed of content creator outside of the pre-established Game and Stream Team listings. While you might be playing Pokémon Red, are you speedrunning it? Doing a Nuzlocke run? Casual? First timer? Communities sought to plug that gap.
However, this has had a somewhat negative side effect for Twitch's flourishing Creative community. Previously, they were able to improve their discoverability via the use of hashtags. Let's say you are streaming some painting. You could add hashtags such as #watercolour #masseffect #beginner #canvas etc to establish your niche and allow people to find you under a listing of whichever aspect of your work they were interested in finding. It was an imperfect system but importantly, it worked. You were able to find different content creators doing different things across a wide spectrum of possibilities.
Now, this has been removed in favour of using Communities to get the point across. However, this has left a lot of Creative streamers in a sticky situation where they are unable to set more than one category at a time. While it might be possible to be found under the painting community, it's now nearly impossible to easily find a user who is specifically painting a particular subject or using a certain type of paints. This has proven to be a real sore point and caused a lot of negative feedback around the new system. Furthermore, this was an unannounced removal as the Communities update rolled in.
Twitch are open to receiving further feedback around the change and are actively encouraging it, but for the meanwhile, Creatives are left at a bit of a loose end. It remains to be seen which direction Twitch will move in around this feedback, but just in case, keep your eyes peeled for a new site from Senshudo that will hopefully lend a hand.