Room Moderation, User List and More

Hi there! I love this site, I’ve been using it for a while and it seems like the responses from moderators here are very personal and not cookiecutter (I have so much respect for that), so I’d love to suggest some things of my own to improve the site and get thoughts!

From my experience using the site, there isn’t much you can do with promotion to mods. I’m running a room where we do frequent watch-alongs and I’d like to promote some of my friends to staff in case I have to step out for a bit. They’d have access to things that I let them – for example, accessing videos, play/pause, moderating chat, etc.

Another suggestion I’d make is in saved rooms, seeing people who aren’t there anymore stay on the userlist is really annoying. I’d like to know who’s there currently and not have to ban everyone all the time, but even when I ban they still show up in the room number. I definitely suggest a fix for that as it can be misleading. Seeing anons stay on the user-list who only show up and leave is also a bit irking – I suggest a fix for this. I tried to ban but they still show up in the userlist.
Is there a way to purge the list? My room stays anonymous to everyone can participate, I don’t want to switch it to members only. It’s why I’m using Watch2Gether because of the anon feature.

It also seems like if the video is paused, it skips forward a little?
I’m not touching the player and it’s locked for moderation, but it keeps occasionally skipping like a minute ahead and then pausing again. It doesn’t skip while playing though, just when it’s paused.
UPDATE: It’s skipping when playing too. I just played a video and it skipped to the end.

It was also letting people play/pause and fast forward/rewind even though it’s locked for moderation.

Look forward to hearing from you!!

Thanks a lot for your feedback! Initially Watch2Gether was created for smaller, interactive groups of friends that know and trust each other. Therefore there was not such a big focus on moderation, user roles and permissions. However, I understand that other group settings have other requirements and I’ll be adding more moderation features with the next releases. I just have to make sure that the service remains easy to use and understand.

Anonymous users are automatically deleteded 7 days after the user has been created. I understand that for busy rooms this might lead to a full user list. When you ban a user the entry of the user remains in the sidebar user list because you have to be able to unban a user as well. Note that only the owner of a room can see these banned users. I’ll think about a purge option that can be used to reset a user list.

Do you experience the skipping of the video as well when you are alone in a room?

Do you have the impression that the skipping happens in the moment when somebody joins the room?

Does the video only skip ahead in time or backwards as well?

I’m asking because occasional skips are normal and part of the background sync process.

Will the option to set users to staff/moderator be an option anytime soon? I am part of a discord community and we use watch2gether to hang out in. As this can potentially have many users on at once, we do require having to keep control of what’s being played.

Thanks for getting in touch. Are you aware that there is actually a moderation system in place? This is currently limited to the owner of the room… See: How to use Watch2gether? and read the section “Moderate your Room”.

the current moderation setting is not all that great in my oppinion. I feel the website would benefit so much better with the option to select which users are able to have certain controls rather than just me (the owner). I would like to choose 2 or 3 other users for example to have owner control but prevent other basic users from having those privelages. Similar to being able to choose moderators on twitch or granting different permissions like discord has.

Thanks for your feedback! Watch2Gether was initially designed for smaller highly interactive groups where everyone is able to select videos but i understand that there are other settings as well. There will be changes to the moderation system but right now a few other things have to be sorted out first. I’ll update this thread once i have news on this!

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Hi. I´m using W2G for teaching video production, and it would be great to have another user who can play, but not all the students, sometimes they accidentally press the play button ot touch the screen on their cellphones.
Best.
E

Requesting a moderation feature to allow users to add to queue or playlist only and not have the capability to immediately play a video or control the currently playing video. Could be a ‘plus’ feature.

Hi @user_521bcdeb7e0d510 ,

This combination is already possible in the Moderation options for all users (not just PLUS accounts):

  • Set Player to Moderators only

  • Set Playlists to All Members

Just tested and I believe this is the result you were looking for. Good luck!

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Ah yes it does work that way already. The way the description of the player is worded, “The ability to select videos…” led me to believe that setting Moderators only on the player would disallow members from adding to playlists. Thanks!

You are right, its a little ambiguous. Updated, thanks.