I'm in favor of this amendment as well.

It has always seemed to me that the self link rule was in place to prevent people from promoting their own work and or profiting from the sift. I don't see why it should hurt people who are just trying to sift up content that is not available from somewhere else.

I must say that I agree with bl on many of his points, steering clear of the specific Fedquip/TAYTV issue.

Say I wanted to share something as harmless as a Futurama clip not found anywhere else, or something as controversial as a banned documentary on the Israel/Palestine conflict. If I happen to like either of those, and upload them to YouTube, then by the time I post them to VS, isn't it ultimately up to the users if it should stay on the site or not?

If what I post turns out to be racist and breaking general conduct rules, I have faith in the community to remove my material. If the community likes it, then cool, it's up and available for discussion.

If all you do is submit your own stuff I think that the sifters would notice and at that point start downvoting the submissions in questions as punishment. The community can and likely will deal with it.

In reply to Rickegee's comment:
“http://www.videosift.com/talk/Will-I-be-banned-for-sifting-up-my-own-content-The-answer-is-yes

It seems like only 26 days ago that we were circling around the same subject. I don't agree that rank or status should allow a Sifter to self-link.

Part of the joy of the whole process is finding treasures. Discovering a video that someone else enjoyed enough to upload to a hosting site and feeling stupidly for a moment that it must have been posted just for you.

If I am putting my own gold in the creek, then the joy of discovery is lost. We may as well call this site Video Rummage Sale.

”

While I agree that the community would likely take care of it, I have always been fond of the bright-line First Commandment as it applies to both newbies and diamonds.

It helps the social aspect of the site, it provides an additional layer of scrutiny/quality, and it holds down the number of Family Guy clips that can be posted.


OK . . .maybe not the last one.

I really don't think it helps the scrunity any more than the standard sift process. The ban on self linking only stops honest people. A dishonest one will just upload to the video hosting site with one identitiy, and submit to video sift with a different one. It will still be self promotion but you can't tell by looking at the two.

Keep it simple and the way it's been. If a user, gold or no, has something to offer that's not available anywhere else then ask a fellow member to help as always.

rickegee, you stole the "putting my own gold in the creek" metaphor from me the last time we did this...

i think your original version was something to do with tom waits having a snapper down his pants...

*quality

Gold Star member Deano has awarded bl968 one published post for this quality Sift Talk contribution.

I did indeed sift your panning gold metaphor to avoid posting original content and angering the rabble. I imagine that you have been so busy preparing for the big (wow! that's a belly!) arrival.

And your hot-link bears repeating as well:
http://www.videosift.com/talk/The-Self-linking-Thread

That was a productive coment thread that was free of a lot of the little personal nonsense presumably aimed solely at fedquip's minor net celebrity. I recommend that everyone revisit that discussion before burning their effigies of fedquip.

Sorry swampgirl but I have to disagree. again it comes down to transparency. at the moment anyone can use the method you suggest... and it can be taken one step further where a user links to their own videos on YT. By that method any first time user can get their friend/fake YT account to post a clip for them without breaking the rules.

Now this seems like it shouldn't be a problem, after all you end up with more interesting clips showing up that were not available anywhere on YT before. That part I don't have a problem with and in fact I think it's generally a good thing.

The issue, as I see it, is that sometime in the future people will alter the clips by embedding their own branding/advertising (as far as I'm concerned only the producers of the content have a right to do that). Maybe that's not a problem but it really does open the floodgates for a whole lot of abuse of the whole community.

The fact of the matter is that there are plenty of members with content they want to share and currently the only way they can do so is by sneaking around (which has happened in the past and will continue to happen unless we address the issue).

I'd be more than happy with a solution whereby only the gold star members can self promote so long as they add the post to a self promotion channel of some description. That way we don't have first time sifters breaking the rule as it stands and productive members aren't treated like criminals.

You know, aidos I appreciate that opinion really. I would love to see some original and/or personal content uploaded from some of our members. On first glance that seems perfectly reasonable, but allowing self-linking from even some of our best and brightest changes the premise of the website. We're supposed to discovering what's out there. If we can submit our own materials then we're just an upper crust YouTube.

The only alternative I can see is maybe a VS youtube account that one must petition it's material to, and from there a member could sift it. But you know, I don't see the rule as it stands as out-dated. Just because golds really really want to self-link now isn't a reason to change a rule that's work for this site from the beginning.

but then we're back to what happened yesterday... and the issue of whether or not a banning should take place... and I don't know if anyone has the energy to relive that just yet

Since this was a family matter and all the kids have spoken...we should leave mom and dad handle it now

hmmmm

I think the only change needed, is in the Sifters who fail to see that the community here should assist with users-own links. It is (or was) the first rule of VideoSift: don't self-link - a quick look through the vast amount & regularity of SiftTalk blogged vids shows it works (as a rule to ban - obviously fails to prevent anything!)

So as I said: the users who fail to use the community and are caught self-linking have no excuse. The rule simply and effectively eavens the playing field of VideoSifting, holds off astro-turf commercial crap and further bonds its users in trust. I really don't understand the issues people have with it.

There's a big difference between rehosting, and self promotion or submitting content you had a hand in creating. I am saying allow gold star members to submit rehosted materials only. I would still want self promotion to remain disallowed. I do however think that banning members new or otherwise for submitting a invalid link should be reconsidered. The material should definitely be deleted but that should end it, unless the person does it repeatedly after being warned.

I'm still in favor of not changing the rules on this, sorry but I do agree with swampgirl, the Sift is about finding stuff that is already out there, hunting things down, being the first one to post the new crotch-shot-of-the-week as it appears on YouTube, once we allow for self linking it not only changes the dynamic of the site by definition, but also by function, as users eventually begin to see the niceties of this system... being able to control the source of your vids is mighty tempting when suddenly one week a dozen or so more of your links are dead... in the long run, it would just become problematic, and would promote laziness in the membership.