One thing I would really like would be a link or tab of some sort that would list all the "videos to save" playlists together. That would make searching easier. Currently I check the recently updated sidebar, or just browse recent comments.

I really like the way playlists allow people to create "series" of videos, and group them together.

The thing that bothers me the most about playlists is that there are so many, as well as duplicates of playlists with slightly different angles, and that not everybody takes care of their playlists as well as others, so it's hard to sort the quality ones from the junk ones. I'd prefer some sort of quality control for playlists. Idk.

I think the sorting abilities should stay, except for the sort by username - that should be just be "view all playlists by _username_". The new sorting additions you suggested were good. To be honest, though, I don't often browse the pages by going to the playlist tab. I mostly find playlists by clicking the link on a single sift to find what playlist it's a part of.

I usually select the reverse option to list new additions first. I always allow viewer suggestions, but I think that should be an option.

Actually, how the heck does one go about suggesting a video to a playlist? I haven't done it, and I know nobody's suggested a video to me. In any case, it should probably be made more up-front.

Personally I must say I have stopped using playlists altogether since collectives came around. People just had better ones then mine.

I love playlists... I have so many that they don't all show up on my profile page anymore! To answer your questions:

* What aspects of the entire playlist neighborhood of features do you enjoy the most? What bothers you the most?

-I like playlists because they are all different, and while I can understand the downsides to this that rembar has mentioned, I don't think instating quality control features is right. Just because someone has not updated their list in over a year does not mean it should be removed... I say this if only because it is possible the user hasn't found anything to add to their list... for instance my 'For Our Great and Glorious Leader' list is on the small side, and doesn't get added to very often... (Kim Jong Il you elusive lil' bastard!). Perhaps instating a voting system for playlists would help to give users a better idea of which ones are good.... nothing crazy here, just a way for users who do go through the playlists to leave a little input as to the quality of the playlist.

* Do you find yourself often browse through the pages listed on Playlists tab? Has playlist browsing added a lot of time to your regular Sift usage?

-Yes, sometimes when I'm out of other things to do on the sift, or just to see what other people have playlisted, or what is popular... don't do away with this feature, I would mourn the loss of access to that sort of data.

* Do you ever use (or "would you really miss") the ability to sort playlists by title or username? Would you like to be able to sort playlists: in random order? by playlist creation date? by number of videos in the playlist?

-I would miss all these functions, the ability to sort the lists is the only way searching through them is at all feasible.... in fact, I would very much like to see more options to sort them.

* Do you always select the "reverse" option to list newest additions first? Do you always decide to allow viewer suggestions? Do you find that the suggestion feature is even of any use at all or have you found it to be utterly useless?

-I like both these features... and yes, I always select reverse, but like having the option to do both. I don't always allow viewer selections, it depends on the list. 'Raven's Favorites' for instance, is all about me... as are some other ones I want control of for various reasons.

* Do you often refer to the "top 5 playlist" sidebar panel? Do you enjoy being listed in there?

-Yes! I like to see who else is as active with their lists as I am.

The only other issue I might have is that I dislike the Playlist Video Manager interface. It is too time consuming to individually order the videos by moving them up or down one at a time... even I am not that compulsive. It would be nice to have preset sorting options within this... like maybe, by most or least votes, oldest or newest date of sifting, etc. That would be really handy and would allow larger lists to be given some coherence very easily.

ps. it would be awesome if I could 'favorite' playlists like I can favorite videos, that way the ones I like the more would be easy to return to periodically.

Make it so you can click on video titles. Make it so that the front page shows the last 10 updates instead of 5. Also make it so that you can remove a video from a playlist at the video display page.

I like the ability to make playlists, it helps for when I'm trying to go back and to find a a video. It's a great way to categorize videos on your own. The one sorting option I would like is sorting by "number of sifts".

Some of my playlists have the user submit option but I don't know if people are submitting anything. I know I have rarely submitted a video to someone elses playlist, if at all.

The sidebar panel is probably the only time I notice the playlists, I like it because you find playlists that you never knew exsisted... like while I typed this post I ran into erics natural born killers...

... 20 minutes later.. so yeah the sidebar of recently updated playlists is a very good.

votes for playlists! my surreal sift is awesome.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I was thinking a Playlist widget would be cool, so that videos in a PL could be played sequentialy, and embedded.

The problem with playlists is searching and finding them.

I think it would be useful under each video to display the top 5 playlists that video is in. That way you can find videos similar to that one.

I think playlist should replace tags. Or at least tags *should* be used as playlist, but the tags are so meaningless and crippled. I'm not sure why there is a 20 character limit, and why we don't use tags meaningfully... oh wait, it is because of the stupid char limits. Tags are how to categorize things, not necessarily playlists.

I like Dag's idea, and all of the features of playlists so far - but like a selfish child I want more...Such as: custom CSS for your playlists and full AJAX drag & drop organisation in playlist manager (not up/down buttons). Also, a VideoSift search for playlists (and their contents) would be good - I guess the up-coming advanced search should have that (and Google already has, but it's a little out-of-date).

I love the playlists, too, as they seem to define us somehow. I really don't have any other suggestions, other than what's been mentioned. I do use the 'reverse order' and sidebar list.

Playlists that play.

yeah, playlist widget we could embed into our own websites would be awesome... I think maybe I mentioned something like this before... because I like the way the top 15 widget works, but for my homepage, I'd rather have control of the content that appears there.

* What aspects of the entire playlist neighborhood of features do you enjoy the most? What bothers you the most?

i use playlists both to organize series, related videos, and to keep track of things that sift doesn't do (yet?) like "what videos i've saved" etc.

it bothers me not being able to remove a video easily like adding it.

* Do you find yourself often browse through the pages listed on Playlists tab? Has playlist browsing added a lot of time to your regular Sift usage?

i never use the playlist tab, i seldom watch other people's playlists. But i use mine a lot to keep track of what videos to save, or still to watch.

* Do you ever use (or "would you really miss") the ability to sort playlists by title or username? Would you like to be able to sort playlists: in random order? by playlist creation date? by number of videos in the playlist?

i don't mind.

* Do you always select the "reverse" option to list newest additions first? Do you always decide to allow viewer suggestions? Do you find that the suggestion feature is even of any use at all or have you found it to be utterly useless?

suggestion is sometimes useful, it depends on the kind of playlist it is.
i always reverse them, unless they are an ordered series (like "Street Fighter: The later years") which i obviously don't reverse.

* Do you often refer to the "top 5 playlist" sidebar panel? Do you enjoy being listed in there?

it's a nice thing, but a bit random. I don't like very much having multiple playlists from the same user in that panel.

edit: i was mistaken, i was thinking about "recently updated playlists"

i also forgot to mention i would like videos in my private playlists to list them alongside the non-private ones.