The new /raid feature is great for channel networking as hosting has always been, but both can be problematic for many viewers. It would be convenient for the User Settings page to be updated with a set of opt out settings for both raids and hosts. If a user opts out of raids, they will be considered to automatically click "Leave" at the end of any raid countdown timer. If they opt out of hosts, hosted channels will not load unless the viewer intentionally presses the "Play" button.

Raids and Hosting present problems for:

1) Temporarily AFK viewers during the stream's end
2) Viewers multitasking during the stream's end (especially playing a game). A raid porting someone from one channel to another can suddenly change audio or bitrate settings, or even alt-tab viewers out of some games.
3) Viewers with data limits who only budget data to watch one channel can be surprised when forced to join other channels and continue to consume data

Thanks!

Recently Twitch may have pushed an update so that raid alerts only activate if there are at least 5 people in the raid. People only learnt about this after a streamer sent a support ticket in about the issue for their own channel, and was responded with "You will need more viewers for the notification to be sent out." On top of this, they may have also pushed an update that ignores hosts of 1 person in the past. Since we only have a mans word and a few pictures to work with, there's no guarantee that this is a real update. However, if these changes are real and pushed without our knowledge, both of them need to be reverted.

Why was this changed in the first place? Raiding is a way of saying "Thank you for joining me, lets go watch this person now that I'm done my stream". It's an invitation for people to meet someone new, usually someone the streamer is friends or a fan of. Many streamers have events that happen when they are raided, such as a thank-you song or a daily conversation question. Most of the twitch community that streams usually raid with less than 10 viewers, and missing out on any raid notification means the streamer can't thank or invite viewers for joining, since there's no way for them to know. Without small raids showing up, it leaves a lot of our community unable to grow their own communities!

What about larger streamers that get dozens of small raids and hosts in a single stream? Well, they've already had ways to get around this issue for many years! Most streaming alert applications such as the ones used through Streamlabs and StreamElements systems have a built-in minimum host/raid system so that users can set their own minimum raid/host amount for alerts to be played. There are also custom alert settings, so people could use different alerts for a different amount of raiders. If streamers never wanted an alert to pop up, the can just get rid of it on their own!

Instead of taking away an ability that was controllable and diverse, why not upgrade it for the larger streamers who do want their activity feed & dashboard cleaner & more manageable? Twitch could add a system to the activity feed on everyone's dashboard that could filter out any unnecessary alerts, and add a filter for minimum number of viewers in a raid or host! Any alerts that "would" have gone through could then be sent to a filtered activity feed, so if need be streamers can check and see what was taken off of their main feed.

Forcing a minimum number for smaller raids affects smaller streamers the most, affiliated or not, and larger streamers already have ways to set their own raid & host alerts to a minimum amount. This was never a major issue, and already had it's workarounds for the people that needed it. We want you to remove minimum raid & host alerts and stop hiding the small streams that are sending their viewers to someone new. This is not what helps build a community, it keeps the people on top up there, and hurts the smaller streamers trying to grow.

Give us a way to set a list of streams we do or do not wish to receive raids from.

Currently the only options for limiting raids are

Allow all raids,
Only allow raids from friends, teammates, and followed channels,
& Block all raids.

Occasionally raids from particular communities my prove disruptive for the receiving community, and we may not wish to take the step of banning the streamer outright. Being able to specify specific streams we do or do not wish to receive raids from would allow us a greater deal of control without resorting to the heavier step of bans.

My idea is to have a stream that is running basically 24/7 that simply plays sounds that allow viewers to continue sleeping. A lot of viewers fall asleep to streams, and it would be nice to have a stream to raid that would allow viewers to continue sleeping peacefully. These sounds could include simple things such as light rain, or lo-fi music. The stream would have a night time image so the viewers screens are not bright as well. This would allow viewers who have fallen asleep to continue sleeping in peace.

I would also like to add that I would be willing to make this happen if it were to get enough support and the approval from Twitch. I have a spare PC that I can use to keep a stream like this running at almost all times, with minimal downtime for things such as if my internet or electric went out.