@fuzzy
The most important piece of information is a clear explanation how this tipbot operates.
Its official website offers me no clue how to use it and how the tips find their way from the sender to the recipient.
Yes you are 100% correct. The documentation is currently lacking, but that is because we are Still in Open Beta and not all these things have been completely ironed out. There is, of course, a basic structure that likely will remain largely unchanged however...so we will be able to help with that over time.
@fuzzy
Having done a lot of guessing, I now suspect the tipbot distributes the tips off-chain - is this correct?
(So the sender first needs to deposit a UIA with the bot's BitShares account, then call the bot to send the UIA to someone, and then the recipient has to withdraw the tip to their BitShares account - is this correct?)
Yes. Currently users pay nothing to enter the system and distribute tokens. They only pay when they withdraw, and they can either withdraw to their own wallet, or make one from OpenLedger (while also gaining part of the referral fees).
@hybridd is the best person to talk to about this however, so I mentioned him and he can help answer with real strong details. One of the big reasons I was so intent on getting the majority of these tokens in our community's hands was to get them to help us make this bot the best it could be...so if you find problems and would like to offer constructive criticism I'd love it and I know that the freebie team would agree.
@fuzzy
I admit I haven't read all the existing forum threads about the tipping, so all I currently know is this:
(1) People on this forum have started sending tips to each other in the form of some strange UIAs
Yes, they have. But to them it may not be strange...and if we take the route of silencing them, remember it only takes one person being offended by
your token in the future to silence
you. This is something I cannot overstate. I literally feel like saying this 400 times in succession. It is very easy to be "offended" and using that as an excuse to keep people from building amazing things is a terrible way of moving forward.
@fuzzy
(2) The forum has become harder to use because of the automated posts generated by the bot.
I agree, which is why I made sure to let everyone know that the intent is to do this open and in public during the testing phases and then move to pm notifications after we are done testing and asking the community to participate.
@fuzzy
And to be able to judge the value added by the bot I'd like to know this:
(1) What is the actual workflow needed to send a tip from person A to B?
Person A = Angie
Person B = Bob
1) Angie visits Sharebits.io and create an account using either the forums, reddit or twitter.
2) Angie then clicks on the memo's clipboard icon to copy the memo that is required by the bot to route incoming transactions to the appropriate account
3) Angie then either creates a wallet on OpenLedger and buys tokens, or opens her own wallet that she had prior.
4) Angie sends the asset of her choosing to account: "sharebits" and makes sure she puts the memo she copied from her Sharebits account and places it into the memo field of her wallet...
5) Now Angie has funds in 1 of 3 accounts: bitsharestalk, reddit or twitter. She can combine these accounts if she wishes...or not. This is her choice, but if she does not, she will have to fund each account separately. (for this case lets just say it is a forum account)
6) Angie sees Bob is running an initiative to get a John McAfee to join our community and possibly integrate the antivirus company in some way with BitShares. She loves it and decides she is going to give him 10 FISTBUMPs she got from purchasing them off the exchange from an entrepreneur named "tuckfheman"
7) Bob is notified (currently using the forums' threads...for reasons already explained) that he received a tip.

If Bob does not have an account, then he clicks the link provided in the notification and creates one in order to accept the token. If he already has an account...it takes him to a page where it shows his balances.
Hope this helps.
@fuzzy
(2) How does this bot earn its revenue? Is it a viable business model that can be replicated elsewhere?
From what I know at present, it will earn revenue in two ways (though it is in beta and at present is not earning anything to my knowledge):
A) when users withdraw to their wallet, a small % of the funds will be paid to do so.
B) if User A receives a tip and has no wallet, they can create one directly from the site through OpenLedger.info. If/when they do this, the bot's wallet will be the referrer and will share some referral fees gained from OpenLedger.