Comments for "A few little tweaks I think VideoSift needs..." Talk at VideoSift.com

By arvana

arvana (http://arvana.videosift.com) — Sat, 10 May 2008 12:21:05 -0700

Can I get a quick *sticky?

By siftbot

siftbot (http://engineering.videosift.com/member/siftbot) — Sat, 10 May 2008 12:21:05 -0700

Stickying this post at the top of Sift Talk - sticky requested by arvana.

By kronosposeidon

kronosposeidon (http://kronosposeidon.videosift.com) — Sat, 10 May 2008 13:39:36 -0700

Nice post, arvana. I'll address each of your suggestions, point by point:

- Auto-select for email: Great idea. People can still uncheck the box if they don't want it, but the vast majority I'm sure would keep it checked.

- Expand possible duplicates list: Another capital idea.

- 'Modify' button problem: I don't have that problem at all, and I've used Firefox, IE, and Opera. Therefore your computer is insane. I understand you use Linux, which is an operating system still in its adolescent phase of development. You know how defiant teenagers can be.

- More playlisting around the site: Ain't nothing wrong with that. Good idea.

- More listing options on the Channels page: You're on a roll. Another primo suggestion.

- Fix 'Unsifted queue date' sorting: Without a doubt, brother.

- Shorten queue time to 2 days: Damn, your roll just came to an end. I think 3-day queues have worked out great, and I paid active attention to mine for a while when the 3-day queue went into effect. I think the second day is crucial to third day success. Sure, the second day is probably still the slowest, but I notice that if my videos get at least 1 or 2 votes during that time then they stand a much better chance of being sifted. This is ideal for music videos, which almost never get that many votes anyway because people here have so many different tastes. Without that second day I believe a lot of music videos will slip through the cracks. Then we'll just have more LOLcats (playing jazz in their sleep ). I'd like to hear what more members think about this point.

- More social features: Well at least we're ending on a high note, because I agree wholeheartedly. I've been longing to find a sifter who's as interested in shirt buttons as I am, so this would be fantastic.

By kronosposeidon

kronosposeidon (http://kronosposeidon.videosift.com) — Sat, 10 May 2008 14:20:07 -0700

Here's one feature I'd like to suggest:

Maximize player size: From my recent Sift Talk post, we should all know that our videos can be bigger if we want them to be. When we're submitting videos I'd like to see a box that's already checked or 'auto-selected' (and can be unchecked if one so desires) next to a function called 'Maximize player size', and what this would do is proportionally increase your video size so that it fills out to the maximum 540 pixels width for video players.

Because bigger is better.

By kronosposeidon

kronosposeidon (http://kronosposeidon.videosift.com) — Sat, 10 May 2008 14:53:27 -0700

One more feature that just came to me in a flash of brilliance:

Right below the 'NSFW' and 'Long' check boxes, we need a third check box with this next to it, which will let the viewer know that the video is good for viewing during altered states of consciousness.

(This feature needs to be permanently disabled for Fedquip and kulpims. I don't believe any explanation for this is necessary.)

By kronosposeidon

kronosposeidon (http://kronosposeidon.videosift.com) — Sat, 10 May 2008 14:54:05 -0700

One more killer idea:

*quality

By siftbot

siftbot (http://engineering.videosift.com/member/siftbot) — Sat, 10 May 2008 14:54:06 -0700

Awarding arvana with one star point for this contribution to Sift Talk - declared quality by kronosposeidon.

By James Roe

James Roe (http://jamesroe.videosift.com) — Sat, 10 May 2008 15:14:11 -0700

Kronosposeidon, I actually made a greasemonkey script that will auto resize youtube videos a while back. I was going to expand it to other hosts and make it detect the currently used css file to scale dynamically with page width but it didn't seem like there was any interest.

http://www.videosift.com/talk/Video-Resizer-2-Alpha

By Eklek

Eklek (http://eklek.videosift.com) — Sat, 10 May 2008 15:33:50 -0700

All good suggestions I think:), apart from the 2 day queue period.
The second day videos do get votes. Would be interesting to see an interactive real-time graph of VS-posts featuring their quantity of votes over time;), maybe this will give insight about the optimal queue-time.

I personally don't have problems with the
-Modify button
-Unsifted Videos 'newest queue date'
(I have Firefox 2.0.0.14)

I think the social features of the site can be improved by introducing a neighbour system like they have at http://www.last.fm: on VideoSift this would mean you become neighbour of an x-amount of sifters who have voted for most for your videos (edit: ..and have a similar voting pattern/taste).

By arvana

arvana (http://arvana.videosift.com) — Sat, 10 May 2008 15:34:52 -0700

OOOOO -- I forgot another big one:

Can we reassess the way videos go into the Top 15? I've seen a few videos get published after a •beg or two, and then quickly get 30 or 40 votes, but no hope for the big time. While others sit in the Top 15 seemingly forever.

How about if the Top 15 counts from when the video is first published, rather than submitted, and keeps them for two or three days from then? That will level the playing field for those vids that got unlucky in the queue.

Maybe there could also still be a bonus time given to videos that got published quickly.

By Eklek

Eklek (http://eklek.videosift.com) — Sat, 10 May 2008 15:42:12 -0700

oh, and now we're at it,
-a "short" (under 30 seconds) box to complement "long" (over 10 minutes)
-Personal Top Channels and Overal Top Channels should display more than 10 channels as we now have many more channels..

By arvana

arvana (http://arvana.videosift.com) — Sat, 10 May 2008 15:56:21 -0700

And another one:

It would be »DEEPLY AWESOME« to have a Stats page with all kinds of live updated statistics about the site.

By dag

dag (http://dag.videosift.com) — Sat, 10 May 2008 16:12:42 -0700

Lots of really good fixes and ideas in here. Keep 'em coming.

By kronosposeidon

kronosposeidon (http://kronosposeidon.videosift.com) — Sat, 10 May 2008 17:21:06 -0700

>> ^James Roe:
Kronosposeidon, I actually made a greasemonkey script that will auto resize youtube videos a while back. I was going to expand it to other hosts and make it detect the currently used css file to scale dynamically with page width but it didn't seem like there was any interest.

http://www.videosift.com/talk/Video-Resizer-2-Alpha

Cool! I must have missed that post. Of course you posted that back when I was fairly new here, and back then I rarely checked Sift Talk. Maybe then interest was low because most videos at that time had crappy resolution, so making them bigger would have only made them look worse. Now that higher-resolution has become the norm your little greasemonky script's time has come.

You were just too far ahead of your time, dude. Not a bad thing. Is it possible for something like this to be incorporated into the site that works for all video hosts? That would be the shiznit.

By rottenseed

rottenseed (http://rottenseed.videosift.com) — Sat, 10 May 2008 18:45:46 -0700

>> ^dag:
Lots of really good fixes and ideas in here. Keep 'em coming.

Translation: Yes, my puppets, keep on pretending this is a democracy

By arsenault185

arsenault185 (http://arsenault185.videosift.com) — Sat, 10 May 2008 18:54:01 -0700

>> ^kronosposeidon:
Here's one feature I'd like to suggest:....

Because bigger is better.

No, its not. What about videos with crappy quality and shitty compression? They would look like absolute SHIZNIT... so I'm not sure its the greatest idea to make them all huge...

By kronosposeidon

kronosposeidon (http://kronosposeidon.videosift.com) — Sat, 10 May 2008 21:33:07 -0700

^Never said that they all HAD to be bigger. I just want the OPTION to make them bigger made available to those who want it. I even mentioned in my comment to James Roe that some videos have low resolution, so bigger would make them crappier. However it's always nice to have the OPTION to make them bigger, correct?

By NetRunner

NetRunner (http://engineering.videosift.com/member/NetRunner) — Sun, 11 May 2008 01:10:07 -0700

About the 2-day vs. 3-day sift limit, why not give us the option to pick anything from 1-3 days when we submit a video?

I generally see the same thing as arvana, that middle day is just a waste.

If we can choose (with an adjustable default in our profile), then we could have the best of both worlds.

By critttter

critttter (http://engineering.videosift.com/member/critttter) — Sun, 11 May 2008 14:42:36 -0700

I had the same problem with the modify button until I switched from Safari to Fire Fox.

By kronosposeidon

kronosposeidon (http://kronosposeidon.videosift.com) — Sun, 11 May 2008 17:56:05 -0700

^Good for you, you effete Mac snob.

By kronosposeidon

kronosposeidon (http://kronosposeidon.videosift.com) — Sun, 11 May 2008 18:01:40 -0700

I just wrote the following comment at dag's Sift Talk post about raising the vote escape threshold, bit I figure it belongs here too. Also I am a graphomaniac, and you can't stop me from babbling all over this joint if I feel like it. So suck on that.

Okay, now read:

Whatever number we decide to raise the escape threshold to, going forward I'd like to see that number being changed on a more mathematical/scientific basis. A while back I mentioned the following, but now seems like a good time to mention it again:

For example, let's say we raise the threshold to 12 starting tomorrow, and over the course of the next few weeks that number seems to work out pretty well for quality standards. Then dag, lucky, or James needs to take a statistical snapshot of the membership at that time. For example, let's say we have 300 active members at the moment we go to the 12-vote threshold, and let's define "active member" as any member who's at least voted once during the previous two weeks, just for the sake of argument. ("Active member" could be defined in many different ways, of course, so the definition can be debated now but must be firm if we implement this new process.)

Therefore we will have a 12-vote threshold, for an active membership of 300 people. Doing the math that works out as:

300 members/12 votes = 25 members-per-vote requirement.

Then for a designated period of time, let's say every 3 or 6 months, another membership snapshot needs to be taken by the admins. So let's say 6 months down the road they find we have 340 "active members" (see definition above). By the math it would work out as:

340 members/25 members-per-vote = 13.6 votes, rounding to a 14 vote threshold.

Once this new figure is determined, it can be posted in Sift Talk and profile-messaged to all active members two weeks before the change goes into effect, that way everyone has plenty of notice.

I think if this new process is implemented it would both ensure quality is maintained and hopefully reduce the amount of bitching that inevitably comes whenever a major change takes place. You can point out the numbers to everyone to justify your decision, saying that we're trying to keep things similar to a representative democracy here, so if they don't like it they must be an enemy of freedom and should be sent to Gitmo.

If you can't win them over with reason, then fear is a workable substitute.

By rottenseed

rottenseed (http://rottenseed.videosift.com) — Sun, 11 May 2008 21:48:21 -0700

^interesting use of statistical data and social psychology to keep quality videos coming. However, I feel that the new first-time posters will find it even more difficult to sift. Let's face it, no matter what we raise the vote escape threshold to, publicity and popularity of the submitter does weigh in on the equation. What if we had cutoffs. Say, at gold star, not only do you get more abilities, but the threshold his raised, then again at gold 100, bronze diamon, etc. so that you are held at a higher standard to compensate for publicity, popularity and increased active members.

By firefly

firefly (http://firefly.videosift.com) — Mon, 12 May 2008 06:00:26 -0700

I would like to have Siftbot's comments hidden by default, it's less clutter to poke through when I'm reading the recent comments from the meat-bag contributors

By arvana

arvana (http://arvana.videosift.com) — Mon, 12 May 2008 16:54:03 -0700

Thanks everyone for the feedback and putting up with my comments!

*unsticky

By siftbot

siftbot (http://engineering.videosift.com/member/siftbot) — Mon, 12 May 2008 16:54:03 -0700

Unstickying this post from the top of Sift Talk - unsticky requested by arvana.

By kronosposeidon

kronosposeidon (http://kronosposeidon.videosift.com) — Mon, 12 May 2008 22:06:43 -0700

I'm going to *sticky this, because this issue needs attention.

By siftbot

siftbot (http://engineering.videosift.com/member/siftbot) — Mon, 12 May 2008 22:06:43 -0700

Stickying this post at the top of Sift Talk - sticky requested by kronosposeidon.

By kronosposeidon

kronosposeidon (http://kronosposeidon.videosift.com) — Mon, 12 May 2008 22:07:58 -0700

Oops, wrong post. *unsticky

By siftbot

siftbot (http://engineering.videosift.com/member/siftbot) — Mon, 12 May 2008 22:07:58 -0700

Unstickying this post from the top of Sift Talk - unsticky requested by kronosposeidon.