Hey Carbonians!
Well as you probably know, we launched our very first beta release last Wednesday, as planned. It’s been a very successful launch thus far, with hundreds of active users posting content, earning points and generally enjoying using the platform in its basic form.
As expected we received a lot of feedback and suggestions. A few minor bugs and some improvements, and some new feature requests too. Over all, the beta has been very stable and performing well on a technical level. We are very happy with the backend performance and are very confident in our ability to accommodate mass usage later on.
There were a few very common requests and suggestions that we’re already working on, such as replying to comments. As mentioned in our previous article, that was already coming soon.
Tomorrow we will be pushing out an update that has a bunch of small fixes and improvements including (but not limited to):
- Votes stay coloured to remind you how you voted
- Hashtag bug fixed (next words were being joined up)
- We’ve refined our reporting system
- No longer need to sign again on refreshes
- Going back will take you to where you were on the page (scroll position)
- Improved post times
- Light mode is now the default for new users and visitors, dark still an option in settings
- Your toggles are now remembered. If you were looking at “following” and “new” then that’s where you’ll start off next time. This allows you to set up your Carbon feed how you like it.
- Comments now have paragraphs (that was a bug)
- Some notification improvements and bug fixes
- A few other little improvements on front and back end
This update is just a start, but as you can see we’re working around the clock to get it up to where we want to be before inviting users to sign up en masse.
You are probably aware, our biggest challenge without a doubt since the beta release has been dealing with a few users looking to deface the platform and generally disrupt things as much as possible. Honestly we don’t understand what makes some people tick but we are using the experience to refine our system, so in a way they are helping us at this early stage.
Our reporting system has been improved now, mostly on the back end to allow us to review reported posts in a more efficient way. We did have to suspend some users for breaking our very clear and simple terms of use. For a recap, here are those terms:
Carbon does not allow posts featuring the following content:
1) Obscene, sexually explicit or pornographic content
2) Unlawful threatening of individuals
3) Organisation of violence or deliberate calls for lawless action
4) Scams, unlawful gambling and pyramid schemes
5) Violations of the legal rights of individuals including their rights to privacy
6) Links to unlawful content on other websites
7) Infringements on copyrighted or patented information
8) Impersonation of individuals or organisations
9) Malicious links or content that may interfere with the operation of any computer
10) Gratuitous violence and gore
11) Trade of illegal items
12) Use of multiple accounts or bots to abuse the points system, votes system and report system
13) Threats, abuse or privacy violations of Carbon team members
14) All other content illegal under Australian law
The terms are not political and do not target certain opinions or even certain users. They are applied equally to all users. Nobody has been suspended due to their opinions. Thus far, suspensions have been due to vote manipulation, threats or abuse of the team, explicit content and impersonating public figures. It’s fine to claim a well known username, it’s not fine to use it to deceive other users and suggest upcoming projects under their name.
Our rules are common sense. They are designed to create an environment that everyone can enjoy. They are rules that apply in public, and they aren’t designed to shape the conversation or fit a narrative. Carbon does not intend to be a lawless platform where “anything goes”. That has never been our goal. Free speech to us means you’re entitled to your opinions and can discuss anything you like, whilst respecting the few basic rules when using the platform. Your political views are irrelevant to us.
Carbon set out to be a new platform allowing social interactions, crypto tools and other personal tools, encrypted private data, unique anonymous MetaMask signups and more. We never, ever, set out to be an anything goes platform where users can come to freely abuse, insult, attack and threaten each other and the team. It is 100% your choice to use Carbon or not. If our rules are too much for you, please look elsewhere. It is what it is.
Aside from these few problems, users have had a great time navigating around and discovering new content and even meeting new people already, and this is with just a few hundred active users. Once we can gain more users and add more features, Carbon is set to become a place you’ll want to hang out all day long. We are very, very happy with where we are positioned right now.
The CRBN token price is beyond our control. Some people assume that “marketing” is the answer and it’s just something we need to switch on. We have said from the beginning that we intend to fine tune the platform during early beta, make sure it’s a place where new users visit and then want to stay at, and then we can commence marketing to recruit as many users as possible via multiple signup options. Carbon will always be a crypto project at heart, but we definitely intend to become mainstream friendly for mass adoption, which will benefit CRBN holders significantly. We are also constantly adding more token utility and most of those features are yet to come. We’ve also constantly maintained that CRBN is a long term thing. We are here to stay, we aren’t a flash in the pan or a UniSwap pump token that comes and goes within a week. Again, it’s entirely up to you if you are on board. We are not responsible for your trading decisions at all. You are.
🚨 New Feature
We’re planning a new feature, and it shouldn’t be too far away at all.
As you now, Carbon features “Groups” allowing users to subscribe and view or create posts within that group. You might also be aware of our Telegram “Elite Group” where holders with 75k CRBN or more can join. We are combining Carbon Groups with the elite group concept, on the Carbon platform.
We will be creating a special group on Carbon, accessible ONLY to users with a certain CRBN balance in their connected wallet. No posts will be viewable at all to users outside of the group. This way we can create a group where we know all of the users are hodlers and “on our side” as such.
This isn’t really the cool part though.
We’ll also be rolling these elite groups out for ALL other ERC20 cryptos. We will allow the teams to contact us, tell us what the token minimum requirement is, and create the groups. We think this simple method of creating elite groups that are self-regulating (balance constantly checked) will be a nice feature on the platform. And of course you’ll be able to join all the elite groups that you qualify for. It encourages users to hodl, which will be a nice benefit to all teams. We’re still planning and designing this feature but it is definitely coming soon.
We have other features planned that we are yet to announce as well. We’ll wait until closer to the time, to discuss them. I’m personally really looking forward to these features and they will absolutely improve Carbon and the user experience.
* * * * *
The next stage of beta will be to open up to more users, allowing new account creation. We are working on some great ways to mitigate the multiple anon account issue, being abused by some users. We have a great solution in the works. At this stage we aren’t sure exactly when we will open up to more users, it may still be in a few days time or it may be a little longer. We need to make sure the next stage doesn’t result in a flood of trolls trying their best to ruin Carbon. Good things take time. It’s a shame we need to put so much time and effort into the abuse from a handful of users, but that’s just how it is. Rest assured we are working non stop and prioritising appropriately.
In case you missed it, we have yet another team member (dev) starting on Wednesday, so our dev capacity continues to increase which is very welcome right now. We’re also employing the services of some security specialists to stress test the platform and search for any possible vulnerabilities. Keep in mind Carbon has no access to your wallet or crypto funds other than reading balances. Our platform is as safe as using Etherscan, in terms of crypto security.
That’s all for now, thank you again for testing the beta. Your feedback has been much appreciated and most of you have been very helpful and supportive. All communications from our team will come via Carbon official channels from now on, so please follow us on Carbon at crbn.social/carbon as well as Twitter and Telegram.
Carbon Team
crbn.io
crbn.social
