Background and Rationale
YouTube's Play Button awards are physical trophies given to creators when they reach significant subscriber milestones, such as 100,000 (Silver), 1 million (Gold), and 10 million (Diamond) subscribers.
These awards have become an iconic part of YouTube's creator culture, serving as both recognition and motivation for content creators.
PeerTube, as a decentralized, open-source alternative to YouTube, currently does not have an equivalent system for recognizing creator achievements at a network-wide level.
Given PeerTube’s federated structure—where each instance is independently managed—implementing a similar recognition system would need to be thoughtfully adapted to fit its unique, decentralized model.
Proposal: Federated Creator Milestone Badges
- Digital Badges: Instead of physical trophies, PeerTube could introduce digital milestone badges that appear on creators’ channel pages and video overlays. These badges could be awarded for reaching certain numbers of subscribers, video views, or other engagement metrics.
- Instance-Level and Network-Level Recognition: Since PeerTube is federated, badges could be awarded both at the instance level (e.g., 1,000 subscribers on a specific instance) and, optionally, at the federated network level (e.g., 10,000 followers across all federated instances).
- Customizable by Instance Admins: Instance administrators could define their own milestone thresholds and badge designs, aligning with PeerTube’s ethos of customization and community control.
- Open-Source Badge Plugin: The badge system could be implemented as an official/Fan-made PeerTube plugin, allowing easy adoption and further customization by the community.
- Optional Physical Awards: For larger, community-driven instances, there could be an option for admins or community groups to crowdfund and send physical awards to creators, if desired.
Potential Benefits
- Boosts creator motivation and engagement, fostering a sense of achievement and community recognition.
- Encourages creators to grow their audience and contribute more content.
- Promotes healthy competition and collaboration between instances.
- Reinforces PeerTube’s commitment to supporting creators in a decentralized, privacy-respecting way.
Implementation Considerations
- Ensure privacy: Participation in the badge system should be opt-in, respecting creators who prefer anonymity.
- Prevent abuse: Badges should be resistant to manipulation (e.g., bot-generated subscribers).
- Federation logic: For network-level badges, develop a protocol for aggregating metrics across instances while maintaining decentralization.
Conclusion
Introducing a federated, customizable creator milestone badge system would bring the motivational benefits of YouTube's Play Button to PeerTube, while respecting its decentralized, open-source ethos and giving communities the flexibility to define their own standards for recognition.