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The new app directory looks good but has some serious problems

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NaomiNSFW

Cam Model
Mar 3, 2024
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Before I start I want to mention app development on Chaturbate has given me opportunities I wouldn't have had and I have nothing against Chaturbate as a platform I just really worry about the decisions made with the new app directory and wanted to warn anyone here who is active on Chaturbate.

The new app directory looks great? Whats the problem?

It looks new and modern and having all the apps within the broadcast page instead of having to open a new window is very helpful. Categories are good as well but there are issues with how they've been implemented
The problem is how information has been laid out to the performer and features that should have been included in the update but haven't been.



So what are the issues?

It seems like feedback about malicious reviews and reporting of apps has been completely ignored in feedback submitted before this new app directory was published. Currently when you add an app if you have a single review it fills up 2 spots on the about page and it's own tabbed section that is prioritised above overlays.
This seems fine but the review sections for apps are not moderated in any form unless an individual app developer asks for them to be taken down and this doesn't seem to happen. Anyone can leave a review even if they aren't a performer and you don't need to even leave a comment or provide a name. This is an absolute gold mine for malicious app developers rating other apps lower to boost their own apps and they will make new accounts or encourage other app developers to rate their apps highly to get a leg-up on the directory.

This means all the apps with multiple 5 star reviews, especially those who have reviews without comments are likely trying to either advertise a service through their apps such as Streamersuite or get you to go to another page off-site. The worst kind will try to get you to install an app they have copied off someone else (which is really easy to do) and then let themselves into your limitcam shows for free if you have the app installed. This is technically against the rules but is impossible to stop without Chaturbate making the reporting of apps easier because it's so easy to copy community apps with open source code and make new ones. You literally have to press a single button as a developer and developers don't own the rights to any of their work it's all licensed under CC-0.



but can't you report apps?

Yes but there really should have been some effort to add a report button or a way to send an issue to Chaturbate without having to email them. I think it's assumed that because apps run in a Sandbox they must be safe but there are plenty of ways app developers are not incentivised to play fair and instead to promote their own interests above other Models.



Layout issues

Reviews now take up even more space in the about page and having to click a "Show more" button to actually see the information about the app provided by the developer seems like a miss-step that should have been fixed. Interestingly if your app has no reviews it makes it a lot easier to actually see what an app is about and read the information page.

The Overlay section has been moved to a separate tab and hasn't really been improved. I constantly find that models have issues understanding how to add the overlays and it really feels like this feature from 2024 has just been abandoned.

The settings page is now even smaller. The input boxes are wider which is good but there should have been improvements to this like adding grouped sections so you don't just have a massive list of input boxes making it hard to find what you actually want. This would be such an easy thing to do as well. Any kind of accordion that expands / contracts would be helpful and would make things a lot easier for models using all-in-one apps.
 
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So i'm going to add some points @smoker919 has mentioned as well as another prominent app developer as they have also brought up some further issues.
  • Markdown is now rendered differently than before, so any workarounds to achieve a consistent layout have to be rethought. This is going to completely break the design of the information page a lot of apps you have already.

  • There's no way to indicate the category or categories that our apps should be placed in and many are wrongly categorized. This happened for my own app Pixel Companions and I have no idea how because it has an overlay but wasn't given the overlay category
The feedback we always seem to get is "Thank you for the feedback and suggestion. The development team has been notified." which provides absolutely no information into whether feedback has actually been taken on or not.

The worst thing is Smoker919 provided solutions for all of these (https://devportal.cb.dev/wiki/api/$settings) but we can almost guarantee at this point they wont be taken on. All we can do is just keep pointing out the issues until they get fixed in whatever way the Chaturbate development team wants to.
 
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Finally the only way i can see that Chaturbate has come up with automatic categories is by using AI or automatically checking for key words in some way. The reason I suspect this is because 2 of my apps that include overlays had different categories and they both had overlays included.

A simple check for whether an overlay is included in an app and then giving that category seems obvious but the development team hasn't implemented it this way.
Trusting the categories of apps to this system is just risky in general as well. Models inevitably will find that categories for apps are just wrong and install something they don't want or need. Apps will get mislabeled and thats going to increase the amount of support queries sent to Chaturbate increasing their workload. It's a bit of a mess.
 
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Thanks for sharing your candid thoughts on Chaturbate's app system, this kind of feedback is incredibly valuable as we work to improve the experience for the community. We really appreciate you taking the time to write it out. I'm passing your comments along to the engineering team, and if anything else comes to mind, we're all ears. Please check your DMs.
 
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Thanks for sharing your candid thoughts on Chaturbate's app system, this kind of feedback is incredibly valuable as we work to improve the experience for the community. We really appreciate you taking the time to write it out. I'm passing your comments along to the engineering team, and if anything else comes to mind, we're all ears. Please check your DMs.

In the App Details section, provide a set of feature check-boxes for developers to mark, that would make categorizing apps so easy on CB's end. And searching/filtering much more effective than keyword searching.

Provide a similar set of pull-downs (Like/Use/Meh) for models to rate the app features. They would have to actually be using the app to do this.
Great feedback for developers.

Thanks for listening.
 
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