Third-party developers (TPDs) often turn to online communities for support when they can't get immediate responses from the platform. Twitch, as a leading live streaming platform, attracted many TPDs and formed an online support community on Discord. This study explores TPDs' support practices via mixed method (a topic modeling to identify topics related to support seeking and provision first and a follow-up in-depth qualitative analysis with these topics) and found that: (1) TPDs' support-seeking practices around social, technical, and policy matters are highly dependent on Twitch, and this dependence acts as a form of platform labor; (2) TPDs need to switch between Discord and Twitch regarding seeking and provision, exacerbating TPDs' platform labor; (3) TPDs' flexible role practices reflect the community's flourishing on Discord but require roles to bridge the two platforms and transfer informal support seeking to possible formal support from Twitch. We propose implications for effectively managing support seeking and provision between formal and informal spaces to improve the development of TPDs. We also contribute to community support practice and to platform ecology work in CSCW.

翻译：第三方开发者（TPDs）在无法从平台获得即时响应时，常转向在线社区寻求支持。作为领先的直播平台，Twitch吸引了大量第三方开发者，并在Discord上形成了在线支持社区。本研究通过混合方法（首先采用主题建模识别与支持寻求及提供相关的主题，随后对这些主题进行深入的定性分析）探索了第三方开发者的支持实践，发现：（1）第三方开发者围绕社交、技术和政策事项的支持寻求实践高度依赖于Twitch，这种依赖构成了一种平台劳动形式；（2）第三方开发者在寻求与提供支持时需要频繁切换Discord和Twitch，加剧了其平台劳动负担；（3）第三方开发者灵活的角色实践反映了社区在Discord上的繁荣发展，但要求建立跨平台的角色桥梁，将非正式支持寻求转化为可能来自Twitch的正式支持。我们提出了在正式与非正式空间之间有效管理支持寻求与提供的建议，以促进第三方开发者的成长。同时，本研究也为计算机支持协同工作（CSCW）领域的社区支持实践及平台生态研究做出了贡献。