There is a lot of excitement over Discord finally reopening their partner applications. I am a staff member in one of the newly partnered servers, actually. Discord made loads of changes to the program and I am not sure they are for the best.

Originally the program was for creators from other platforms who are providing publicity for Discord. Applicants were required to meet specific standards for the platform(s) they were a part of. These requirements were in place to help filter out applicants who weren’t popular enough to provide any benefit to Discord. Those lucky few who were accepted got some awesome perks for being a partner. Every partner had the opportunity to set one of their servers as their partnered community. The partnered community got many of the perks boosted servers get now, including the vanity URL, announcement channels, and server discovery in the later days. The partner themselves also received some perks, these included the Discord Partner Badge, a slightly limited Discord Nitro subscription for the life of the partnership, and an awesome hoodie. The perks do still apply to current partners, still trying to get that hoodie.

The new partner system is quite different. Starting with the new application process, by making use of the very cool server insights feature, owners can view what their server qualifies for whether it be partnership or verification. The requirements are by no means hard to meet. In fact, my small community server the blue muffin is somehow qualified. Discord does still ask for your other social media accounts however they are not required to become a partner. This is where the big change comes in, aside from the atrocious logo. Discord has shifted it’s focus from creators to communities. Having an outside influence is no longer a requirement, large communities are now being welcomed into the partner community. The new partner badge has changed its name, actually; the badge is now identified as Partnered Server Owner. This makes it a bit clearer that Discord is no longer focused on their publicity but their users instead, this is a good change in theory.

Typically when a company has a partnership with another company or individual there are benefits both ways, in the case of Discord, it seems the benefits are only going one way; for the most part anyway. Obviously, Discord does still accept applications based on your other platforms. However, regardless of why you are applying you are required to meet the specified requirements in your server. This change makes sense, I have seen some partnered servers belonging to very popular partners which have next to no activity. Not to point any fingers discord.gg/muffin.

Unfortunately, because of the very low requirements and focus on servers the program, in my opinion, is no longer worth it. Unless you really want that badge on your profile and server there really is no benefit partnering will bring that boosts can’t; with some exceptions such as experimental features. The thought that a server like mine would qualify for a partnership is crazy, although I surely won’t be accepted; right?.

Discord is doing it’s best to make a change for the better, whether this was one or not; only time will tell. If you are one of the thousands of partner applicants out there, good luck. Please do wish me well, I just want the hoodie ;-;.

OBS - Chief Executive Officer