Ivy Zhao

Community leadership case study

Community leadership as BlightFall grows.

Since June 2026, I have volunteered as Community & Operations Lead for BlightFall, overseeing Discord systems, moderation, onboarding, events, player support, feedback, and developer collaboration for a community of approximately 2,000 members. The Roblox project is currently in development.

Server governanceCommunity listeningModerationLive eventsPlayer feedback
Community scale
About 2,000
members as of September 2, 2026
Growth period
484 to about 2,000
members from June 26 to September 2
Live developer Stages
2
planned and moderated
Peak attendance
About 70
concurrent attendees at the second Stage

The community loop

Listening, translating, and following through.

01

Listen

Questions, suggestions, moderation needs, and live discussion.

02

Find the signal

Recurring themes, useful context, and issues that need attention.

03

Connect the team

Relevant feedback reaches developers with enough context to use it.

04

Close the loop

Announcements, FAQs, events, and server updates help players stay informed.

The goal is not simply to collect reactions. It is to help players feel heard and help the team understand what the community is experiencing.

Situation and role

Building the community layer before launch.

My role is to help create a community space that players can understand, moderators can run, and developers can learn from.

I joined the volunteer team on June 17, 2026. As membership increased, I took responsibility for the day-to-day community environment and non-development coordination while working directly with lead developers on announcements, feedback, events, contributors, and server needs.

Community foundation

Making a larger server easier to enter and run.

I manage the channel structure, roles, permissions, bots, AutoMod, announcements, moderation workflows, escalation handling, events, and member support that shape the day-to-day server experience.

As the staff team grew, I clarified responsibilities, tightened elevated permissions, refreshed staff guidance and public rules, and reorganized moderation logs. I also set up Rules Screening, the Server Guide, Resource Pages, FAQ and link references, a clearer Community Overview, moderation 2FA, and the server’s public Discovery presence.

Channel architectureRoles & permissionsBots & AutoModStaff guidanceOnboardingServer Discovery

Growth and listening

Staying responsive as membership increased.

Available Server Insights show membership rising from 484 on June 26 to 1,051 by July 27. By September 2, the community had reached approximately 2,000 members. I lead the community operations around that growth by maintaining the server, supporting members, handling moderation needs, and helping the team adapt.

Dozens of suggestions can arrive in a day. I review them for recurring themes, answer questions in the help channel, update the FAQ, and relay useful context to lead developers. I also translate development information back into community-facing updates once the team has decided what to share.

Daily suggestion reviewQuestions & answersFAQ maintenanceFeedback synthesisDeveloper context

Live developer Stages

Moderating live build-and-feedback sessions.

I have planned and moderated two Discord Stages where developers demonstrated Roblox Studio work, developed live, answered player questions, and gathered feedback. The first ran for roughly 2.5 hours with approximately 40 peak attendees; the second ran for about three hours and reached approximately 70 concurrent attendees.

I managed speakers, highlighted missed questions, monitored chat, and relayed useful feedback while supporting presenters and players at the same time. When GIF spam became disruptive during the first event, I temporarily restricted stickers and embeds so the discussion could continue.

Brand and engagement

Giving the project a voice people can respond to.

I designed BlightFall’s logo and helped define its wording and brand direction outside the game itself. I also use announcements and low-friction prompts to invite participation; a server-wide poll about the project’s brand colour prompted an active discussion about how players understood the game’s identity.

Those moments help the team see how players interpret the project while giving the community a meaningful way to participate.

Earlier communities

Two Warframe clan Discords.

From approximately 2019 to 2021, I founded and configured two Warframe clan communities from scratch. Each grew to approximately 300-400 members as part of a larger clan alliance community of roughly 1,600 members at peak.

I built channel, role, and permission structures; configured bots; moderated member issues; supported activities and events; and eventually transferred Discord and in-game leadership to successor owners through planned handoffs.

What this demonstrates

Experience that transfers directly to:

  • Community management
  • Community operations
  • Server governance
  • Moderation and escalation
  • Onboarding and information design
  • Live-event facilitation
  • Player-feedback coordination
  • Developer collaboration

Community and operations, together.

The companion BlightFall operations case study covers product strategy, systems design, reporting, implementation direction, and acceptance testing.

View operations work