Hey Carbonians, it’s time for another update.
Carbon has been in beta for a few months now and we’ve been looking closely at how users are using or abusing the system we have had in place. Specifically the points and rewards system. We’ve continued development of key features and made a lot of progress and improvements to Carbon already. It’s time for some changes based on our findings and where we want to take Carbon.
Firstly, it’s important to conclude that there is no possible system to reward users for their content that cannot be manipulated or exploited. We’ve tried to make some adjustments to eliminate the cheaters or users posting high frequency, low quality posts for visibility or simply to keep accumulating points constantly. We haven’t been able to come up with any system that rewards original content or high quality content and at the same time discourages the junk. Carbon is quite an anonymous and private platform, which has many benefits. One side effect though, is distinguishing between real, genuine users and content, and low quality, like-for-like schemes or multiple accounts. The voting system is still an effective way to sort and filter content, but when it’s tied to a points system that can result in real rewards, it will always be abused by enough users to render it ineffective.
We want to create a high quality platform full of exclusive content. We want to allow the users to control their experience. We don’t want to reward people for exploiting a generous rewards system whilst defacing the entire feed.
In summary, we’re removing the points for app usage for now. It’s unfortunate that some users have led us to this decision, but it is certainly for the best when it comes to building a platform that attracts genuine users and creates a space they want to spend time in. There is simply no way to award points for any task at all without it being abused. Points have been switched off now, and users cannot earn points any longer for upvotes, comment upvotes or poll votes. Only for holding CRBN. This was quite an abrupt change because we can see particularly over the past week, there are a few dozen users working together to completely manipulate the system. We can see who is voting and in what order and there is a clear pattern and also evidence of multiple accounts. Everybody loses when a few people put so much effort into cheating, it ruins the entire platform and we will never tolerate it.
After this rewards period (which will continue, minus any further app usage points), we will be reverting to the Top 300 CRBN holders only, sharing in the rewards pool. That’s very good news if you are a CRBN holder. In future we will likely revisit the app usage rewards system but we first need a larger, more genuine user base to render the manipulation useless.
The upvote/downvote system will remain for ranking posts. Users can gain influence and followers from the exposure given by popular posts. Carbon is a new social platform, becoming an influencer early on will be very valuable later and it will never be easier to become an influencer than right now.
Our focus for Carbon is on new features, some of them quite unique. You know about the portfolio that is coming very soon (a few weeks from now). You know about the NFT feature and the messenger. We will also be including group chat, fully encrypted. This isn’t far away at all and our encryption levels and methods are far superior to other social platforms.
We have a new feature we are working on, called Faves. It will allow users to list their top 20 favourite things, across multiple categories such as movies, music, places, cryptos, games, brands and more. Faves will be viewable for all users from their profile page, and a Global Top 20 of everything will be formed for each category. This feature is mostly “for fun” but will also provide valuable insights into trends, and offer good exposure for brands or crypto projects for being feature in the top 20. Faves is due for release soon, within the next few updates and help to further expand a user’s profile.
We intend to develop Carbon into a platform that people use by choice, where they enjoy spending time in various ways. These features are just the beginning. Putting a stop to the flawed rewards system and focusing on quality, socialising and entertainment is the direction we plan to take Carbon and it is overwhelmingly positive (just not for the rewards riggers). We’re also working on a new “activity feed” section showing activity from those you follow (not just their posts). Additionally we are working on some more filters based on user location, which will allow you to control the source of posts you see in your feeds, among many other things. More information is coming soon about that.
Carbon has already changed so much since the first concept, that the old whitepaper is no longer relevant. We have evolved and improved to become a much fuller platform, well beyond the “crypto tools and private data” concept we first planned. CRBN tokens will have increasing utility in future as well. For now, hold CRBN to be in the top 300 for future rewards, and save them for later to use within the platform itself. We are building the in-app ecommerce system right now and CRBN will be essential for promoting posts, accessing upgrades and enhancements, NFT creation and more.
So just to recap… some big changes are coming and more features:
- Rewards points for app usage has been removed for now
- Rewards for holding CRBN remain (Top 300)
- New features coming including “Faves”
- In-app ecommerce system coming, CRBN required
- NFTs, DMs, Portfolio getting closer
- Our focus is on quality and user experience / user control
- Our system is coping well with heavier usage, scales well
- We will be using a new domain carbon.social soon
- Groups will be renamed to Topics soon, because we will have actual groups later on which will be separate (hodl groups for each crypto, for example)
- Our Telegram group is closing soon, because we’ve built our own social platform to replace it. Telegram announcement channel will remain for now, as will our Twitter.
We’ve had a lot of new users signing up via email since introducing it, and we are yet to heavily market for new users (as we are still building and adapting). Daily active users is climbing and genuine app usage is growing. We are very confident in Carbon’s future after we make important changes and release more features.
Thanks for your understanding and sticking with us as we continue to develop Carbon. We’ve been working hard and will continue to do so, whether tough calls are required or not. When the dust settles, Carbon will be a platform you want to be a part of and the utility of CRBN tokens will be very clear.
Carbon Team
crbn.social
crbn.io
