Discovery channel's preditors discover their ad-hungry Killer Clips (a.k.a. "Animal faces of death") - a series of highly popular 30- to 40-second clips of animal takedowns featuring a.o. "cheetahs killing gazelles the same way they did (just to be on the safe side) 3000 years ago" - in their deep digitized video vaults..

So, I guessed your point correctly? Do I get a cookie?

I think everyone harbors a morbid curiosity about death deep down inside (soothing that curiosity is the major function of religion), but there are plenty of other places to go on the net to see that kind of stuff if that's what you seek.

I'd personally rather not see 'faces of death' on videosift.

Can we tag this with some sort of cautionary note, as in a milder version of "Faces of Death"? Had I known this video would have played out as it did, I wouldn't have watched it. (NB: I'm not saying others shouldn't watch it -- just that I would have liked to get a better idea of what I was going to watch beforehand.)

faces of death: when walrus attack

Wow, the signal to noise ratio on this debate is terrible. There's a couple statements here I was interested in replying to; some serious and some not so.

therealblankman...this is worse, barely passes the "no snuff videos" rule...hmmmmm...
http://www.videosift.com/video/Tiger-hunting-in-India-Sometimes-the-Tiger-Wins

You can't be serious. Not only does that video not show loss of human life, but there wasn't even any loss of life off-camera. That encounter wasn't planned for amusement, it was an event that unfolded naturally and just happened to be caught on film. The participants also had an important option that our arachnids here did not: run the fuck away.

Next fight should be Scorpion vs Brown Recluse

Brown recluse spiders are not aggressive and generally attempt to escape or hide from threats. That's why they call them recluse. No doubt you've seen photos of a necrotic brown recluse bite and somehow got the idea that they are vicious fighters. Bites rarely turn necrotic and when they do, it takes several days. Your proposed fight would be roughly equivalent to a Staffordshire bull terrier vs a mallard duck with avian flu. The dog might get sick and die later, but it's going to rip that duck to pieces.

Sorry for causing controversy

Controversy is nothing to be sorry about. All the best moments here start with some controversy. It's the quality, or lack thereof, of many of the posts that people should be sorry about.

It's called NATURE. If you can't handle it, then stay the fuck out of this channel. What next, are you going to bitch and cry about a video showing a lion taking down a zebra in Africa? "Oh, that's cruel!"

It's been called nature, yes, but I fail to see the natural aspect of a cage deathmatch. As I implied above, most animals will try to escape when faced with death. That's what you might call a natural reaction. The spider attempts to put distance between it and the scorpion a couple times, but it can't because it's trapped.

If anyone could understand humanity, it's a "military man." I guarantee I've seen and experienced WAY more shit than you ever will. I've seen shit that would make normal people gag, seen stuff that would give people nightmares for months, and experienced things that would warm the coldest of hearts all in one week.

MG, let me preface my actual statement. I do this because what I'm about to say may well offend you and that's not my intention, though it's probably unavoidable. I think I speak for the majority here, that I respect your sacrifices and service to our country. I also respect your opinions and acknowledge that if it weren't for people like you, we may not have the right to have opinions.

However, none of this places you above us. I realize that you've been brainwashed to believe that you are the ultimate form of human, but the only people who believe that are the other people who were brainwashed with you. In the past 10 years or so, I've known several people who've been in the corp. They've all come out with the same superiority mentality. We all know you've had unique experiences and have unique insights, but so has everyone. Stop trying to be everyone's drill sergeant and just have a discussion. You're not impressing anyone.

The sift will sift what it feels is appropriate or not. Since this video doesn't break any of those rules. It shall be...

I'm downvoting this, myself. I don't believe it breaks any of our rules, and it doesn't even particularly offend me, I just find it has no value. If I wanted to watch lower life forms crawl all over each other, I'd go download the Paris Hilton sex tape. This isn't an insightful look at nature, except maybe the nature of immature boys. It's not entertaining, funny, creative, educational or anything else I believe the sift seeks to represent.

Move on? Is that what you tell someone when they tell you their mother or grandmother was killed in a concentration camp? Is that what you tell someone when they tell you their family died in the blast at Nagasaki? Is that what you tell someone when you learn that his father died on the beaches of Normandy or Okinawa? Grow up and stop being a troll.

Great post, Lurch. May we all remember those who came and went before us that stared into the face of death so that the Red, White and Blue may fly freely.

A few things quickly before I go to bed and pass out:

@dag: I didn't realize that the creation of a channel was still so easy, what with the switch to 3.0 and all and 'collectives' having become 'channels', I wasn't sure I could just go and make a new one. Anyway, I will certainly do that which you outlined as soon as I find a new owner for the HorrorShow. Before I open it up to the public, however, I want to wait and see if Silvercord would like to take it over... he has really been a co-conspirator in many HorroShow hijinks and I would like it to go to him first if he is willing. If he decides otherwise though, I will open it up for takers... its a hard thing to part with, but I've given it my all and I think I am ready to move on.

Also @dag: I will address the issue of verbiage tommorrow, am faaaar too tired to do so at the moment, had a busy busy social night tonight, I needs my sleep.

@johnny, I will address your issues in the morning as well... but quickly... I think maybe you misunderstand swampgirl's voting scheme. The special voting would only be for the videos that get blogged, and really, I think those will be few and far between, only the ones that might potentially be too graphic. You see, most of the Iraq/Afghanistan videos that get discarded right now are done so because there are off camera, or implied deaths. Under the revised guidelines, these will not be an issue and thus will not even get blogged. Those that do get blogged will only be because there is a potentially truly gory moment on screen... and frankly, of all the vids that I have seen sifted (discarded or not), there were only ever a few of those that would fall into this category. Really, the majority of the stuff out there falls far short of that which everyone actually fears: some sort of Faces of Death carnival. It's not going to be like that, you see, I don't want to see truly disgusting vids either, terrorists beheading journalists is not suddenly going to become mainstream on this site.

All your other concerns will be addressed in 9-10 hours, the Raven requires some rack time now. Buenos noches.

Choggie is hitting the right tone here for me, it's all about adults and choice. Obviously we have no video here that fits the snuff definition, and for a good reason, we are adults that can police ourselves. The video I sifted, had NO, and I repeat NO downvotes. That speaks volumes, as far as I am concerned. Do we honestly think that the sift will turn into some "Faces of Death" site because we sift non-graphic war footage that has casualties?

oh my!...faces of death-

Fletch is right, the wording needs changing in the guidelines, and all are correct when they say this does not qualify as snuff. Is not seeing an IED, going off, enough to paint a picture of what happens when the same goes off, with soldiers near? Same with Danny pearl viddy, and Sadaam's hanging...the knife against the throat, and the noose round the neck, combined with the news of the results, are enough to illicit a healthy discourse, without taking it to the faces of death level.....

What if we had some scenes of a cruise ship sinking fast, a high-res feed coming from a satellite, in real-time? Could we justify having THAT up here, with good conscience?

I think you're totally right, except with regard to 9/11, a Sift consensus collectively decided that videos of the historic/horrific events of that day should be accepted. I know it seems to contradict what I just said above, but that decision was made not only democratically by a group, but for a specific set of events, all black & white and no fuzzy gray area.

I think the rule exists basically so the Sift doesn't become a Faces of Death fest, attracting all LCD individuals looking for a cheap thrill via bloody gore and naked horniness. This is why the death content that is explicitly permitted is usually only a brief part of a much more lengthy intellectual discussion.

JD - I should not have been so antagonistic in my comments. It seems to have blinded you to the point I was making. I agree with you that the situation is completely fubar and that people should not have to face possible death for something like that. But the fact remains that that is the situation, and there's no way you'll convince me she couldn't have understood that. MIT campus is not Logan Airport - hell the Media Lab has an entire section devoted to wearable computers.

All I'm saying is, she should have known better.

Yes - when you are taken to an emergency room, you are treated first, but ~70% of all visits to a hospital do not come through the emergency room, and if you have insurance, and go through the emergency room, you are the one who has to haggle out whether or not that visit was covered by your insurance company.

Otherwise, if you are in the ~70% of people that do NOT go through the emergency room, your doctor has to haggle with your insurance company, in most cases, to determine what is deemed as "covered" by the insurance company. It is in this stage that many people die waiting to be treated - sure, the possibility to treat them is there, but if their insurance company won't cover it, they usually can not afford it...and the insurance companies will deny most every treatment they can.

Well, we'll have to see what happens in Massachusetts then - as Capitalism goes, a 100% demand for something most often raises the prices of it. Do you not think that a 100% demand for insurance will cause insurance companies to increase advertising in Massachusetts, just to get a piece of the pie? Do you not think that such advertising will create more of an economic dependency on the insurance companies, and in turn, they will be forced to raise prices? After all - they're certainly not going to lower them. The risks involved in insuring even just single individuals stays the same, regardless of whether they have one person covered, or an entire state.

"If you look at the past, you'll find people suffering from diseases and facing early death at a much higher rate than today" - oh, so you've seen statistics, eh? Please post the data source here, so I can actually review it. As it stands right now, I have subscriptions to 3 major data warehouses and can't seem to find much of anything prior to the late 1800's(and I've looked, and charted death rates from then to now - if you want them in CSV or any other format, I will export them for you).

No - you learned from your history books that "if you look at the past, you'll find people suffering from diseases and facing early death at a much higher rate than today" in quite a broad sweeping generalization that has very little statistical backing...or actual statistics, for that matter. It's pretty well known that, around every 60-80 years, the human race suffers from a bug that infects around one fifth of it's population, and kills off literally millions - the last happening around 1918(The 1918 Influenza Pandemic).

Now, even with the discovery of antibiotics, the human race is learning of "antibiotic resistant" strings of pathogens - unusual? - I think not. Would it really be all that surprising if another bug infected around one fifth of the human race, starting some time within the next 10 years? Not really - and yet it's just another thing that civilization has not actually helped with.

What bureocratic process? When you are taken to emergency room, you are treated first. Doctors and nurses are on payroll and don't care if you have insurance or not. And the accounting staff who has your insurance information is not authorized to tell doctors to stop treating you.

Refusing to provide urgent care is against the law. There may be hospitals breaking the law regardless of whether health-care is free or not. For instance in the later years of Russian free health care doctors would typically be unmotivated to treat you, and require a bribe before they'll examine you

Sure, there may be a couple of bad apples, but those hospitals will get shut down sooner or later. For instance, an LA Hospital is now in a similar situation http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/jul2007/hosp-j02.shtml

Mandatory insurance is in fact going to make insurance prices drop. If everyone gets insured, including young healthy people, that reduces the cost for the insurance companies. Because insurance is a competitive market, the companies will be forced to lower insurance prices or go out of business.

Whichever way you slice it, civilization has given us unprecedented life-span, and if you look at the past, you'll find people suffering from diseases and facing early death at much higher rate than today.

Thank you, James.

In reply to your comment:
“So we are updating the faq, to modernize the no snuff rule. Basically we have the rule because we don't want to be "faces of death sift." That said there are some things that should be available for debate. With that in mind we are going to revise it to allow death from reliable news sources as well as from documentaries.

The faq won't say this explicitly but we will still probably remove anything REALLY graphic, even if fox / cnn / whomever thought it was appropriate to air.”