BitTubers.com Beta — phase 2!

It’s been two weeks since we opened the closed beta for BitTubers.com for Addict-level users. Today, Pro-level users who are staking 2500 TUBEs can join the party as well. We are joyed by the positive reception of the new platform so far! Admittedly, it still needs a lot of work; the community’s bug reports and suggestions have been invaluable and highly encouraging. Keep ’em coming!

What you can expect

Helped by our fellow Tube Addicts, we have been stomping out bugs and adding new features. We ask everyone to report bugs using the #bugreport topic. Some early bugs have not been fixed yet and new ones have undoubtedly been introduced along the way, so keep that in mind. Please do a quick scroll through the #bugreport topic to make sure you’re not posting known issues.

Among many things, with this release, we’ve added:

• Dark mode
• Private messages sidebar to the right
• Live stream chat
• Group chat
• Folders for Topics (sidebar)
• Bio cards when hovering over usernames

Moderation tools

We’ve also started implementing moderation tools (see Moderation in the sidebar). This section is not fully functional yet and will be ready before open beta.

The moderation section is relevant for everyone. It is meant to provide a transparent system between moderators, posters and reporters to hold each other accountable.

In short, we achieve this by having a “Reports”, “History” and “Disputes” tab that shows items relevant to your privileges. For example, an admin gets to see all the reports that come in. A regular user is a moderator over his/her own profile and groups, and will see and act on the reports within his/her privileges. On the other side of the fence, the reporters can track the progress of their reports with ‘read-only’ privileges. When a post or comment is reported, the item is placed under “Reports” for the relevant users to see (moderators, the poster and the reporter). The moderator and poster can interact on this item in a ‘parallel’ comments section. If the moderator decides to remove the item, it is then moved to History with a mandatory final comment from the moderator. Here, the poster can choose to dispute the decision within a week by adding a new comment. This will start another fresh parallel comments section to discuss the issue. Undisputed items in History will be purged after 90 days. Lastly, users will be able to earn XP points for reporting actionable items, which reduces membership fees. Read more about XP on BitTubers.com in About → Memberships & Pricing.

Once the above system is fully operational and secure, we still start introducing the long-awaited Community Moderation System. This system will give community members voting power in the moderation process. The best thing is, they will earn rewards based on their performance. The goal is to increase transparency. For a sustainable and fair platform, we need to keep the moderators accountable as well as make the system scalable to handle more and more reports without centralizing the decision-making process.

But there’s more…

BitTube browser update

The BitTube browser has been updated. We have fixed known bugs and improved performance. Netflix codecs are now supported and the browser features the latest Firefox security release. We are currently working on adding auto-updates and Tor integration. We are planning to add the BitTubers front end locally to the browser with storage node functionality. With Tor and WebTorrent, users will be able to access the platform without the website and completely peer-to-peer!

TubePay API for merchants

If you manage an online shop you can now use the TubePay API to set up products for sale directly via the AirTime Module! The module provides revenue based on your website traffic. TubePay is the first of many additional ways to generate revenue from your users. The module also allows you to place donate buttons on your page for your visitors to send donations instantly.

What’s up next

It may be hard to believe, but can finally say that we are in the late stages of development. The main parts of the BitTube ecosystems are now in place and being polished and expanded:

• We’ve nailed monetization with AirTime.
• BitTubers.com is nearing release.
• The extension does everything we want.
• The BitTube browser ties everything together for peer to peer social networking, uncensorable storage, monetization and private browsing.

What more do you need? Let us know on Discord! ;)

Have a great weekend,

Your BitTube Team