I opted back in and did a "standard sift watching session" for me of a few videos.

This time I forced myself to actually look for things that I noticed weren't in the places that I was expecting.

Some more thoughts:

I tried to figure out where to see "who voted for this video", currently under the comment entry box. I can't find that information in beta UI. I must admit that the current location isn't particularly logical, but I know to look for it there and I can't find it at all in the beta.


The "sidebar" content changed from Sift of the Week / Comment of the Moment / Leaderboard List (of whatever section you are currently in; Top New Videos, Top Videos Expiring Soon, etc.) to Suggested Videos and Related Videos. I think the old sidebar content was more likely to be relevant to what I want.

I get that that stuff has been moved into the header menus, but in my opinion it is harder to access there:
For beta - mouse to Watch button/menu, hover, mouse to relevant section like Top New Videos, mouse to which one I want
Old - mouse to what I want in the sidebar, which is probably already visible but not taking up TOO much screen real estate, and if it isn't visible it is a quick mousewheel jump away

In the meantime, the new sidebar makes stuff that I personally don't care about at all BIGGER. I don't understand what/who suggests the "Suggested Videos" and by what criteria they are deemed to be of interest to me, and "Relevant Videos" are mostly relevant in a long-timescale sense (ie., stuff from a single video series, containing same/similar tags, etc.) where on the sift a big part of the appeal is to vote on what is hot NOW. But those two things take up more space than the old sidebar that was filled with stuff that I *did* care about; they are now big thumbnails with a title underneath plus lots of spacing between list items compared to small thumbnail with title *beside* and very minimal extra padding/spacing between list items. So, the new sidebar has stuff I don't want to see, and spaces it out so that I have to scroll the mousewheel a lot more to get through it (even though it has fewer total list items than before!).


A big part of my personal enjoyment and engagement with the sift is video comments. I'm not a big fan of the beta font for comments, but I think I could potentially get used to it. But more important than the font is that it seems like each comment gets less total screen real estate, and there is more padding/space between each comment AND the sidebar.

I'd like to see that spacing/pad cut down to more like the old style. Beyond that, I figure it is safe to assume that you're not interested in bringing the old sidebar content back (Sift of the Week / Comment of the Moment / Top X Videos) from its beta location in the menubar. Assuming that that will stay there, I'd *much* rather see comment boxes that take up the majority of the page width with NO sidebar. Old sidebar and old style comments would be my personal choice, but assuming that isn't going to happen, I just feel like the beta sidebar is unnecessary and massively oversized / overspaced.


So, I gave it another shot ... back to opting out for me for now.

@lucky760 this is a bit weird. I'm not sure if this is how it's intended to be.

If, while on a permalink page, I hover over "Watch" and then hover over "Search", an advanced search window opens up in the top of the permalink page. I enter my search terms, and the returned results are contained within that top half window (example here). If I then select one of the results, I get a new permalink page opens within the top window (example here).

It appears you can keep opening windows within windows as much as you want. As soon as you move your mouse off the original top window everything disappears and you're left with the original permalink page you started with.

While you're addressing issues...
It would be nice to have some way of seeing who up/downvoted a comment on a touch interface. You can hover with a mouse to see it, but there's no way to do that on a phone/tablet.

Not really sure how you'd solve it though.

I've added a delay to the menus so they'll only appear if you pause your mouse over a tab.

@oritteropo - Thanks for reporting. Fixed the invocation pop-up.

@Hastur - Thanks for chiming in. Bookmark functionality is going to be restored.

Some things:

1. The length of a video affects whether I feel like watching it. I'd like to see the length (in parens) added after the title of each vid, or some other way of quickly seeing how long they are.

2. Lengths on the page itself are also really helpful when fixing dead links to know the odds you've got the right one.

3. I hate mouseover menus that pop up too easily (new ones seem to pop up instantly) and ones that don't go away easily (they have a disappear delay) or change easily (they have a change delay).

I'd like these timings to be opposite:
* mouseover menus should open only after a short delay (long enough for my mouse to pass over if it was going somewhere else);
* they should change instantly to the next menu when I mouseover the next heading; <---this one especially! and * they should all close instantly when my mouse goes below the menu or above the headings bar.

I agree with some of the comments that were already made:
- I missing seeing the channels
- I feel the hover over pop-out is too fast as well
- It feels like a lot of wasted space...its hard to describe, but things feel too big. I use everything from a tablet, to a 27 inch monitor, to a 40 inch TV to browse this site, and I on this new design, I find myself zooming out 3 or 4 times to get a 'comfortable' fit on the screen.

Most importantly, 95% of my activity on this site is opening a video from the front page, or from the "top new videos by vote" list. Then when I'm finished with that video, I quickly find another from that same list. I miss having that list ever-present on the screen. I just dont like the mouse-over pop-out. It lacks ranks and the thumbnails are too big. And it doesnt look like I can adjust the list length like I did on the 'old' design, to show 20 videos, instead of the original 10 or 15 (whatever the default was).

Lastly, I've mentioned this before to some people: I would LOVE a way to filter siftbot replies and user invocations in comments. I hate having to scroll past 8 or 9 siftbot replies, and user invocations, just to find 1 actual comment buried somewhere in there. If all someone does is comment *Down Under, and siftbot replies that its added the Down Under channel, then allow us to hide those messages.

But most importantly, I would like the ever-present Top Videos list on each page.

Just noticed, under the Watch menu, if I actually click on the words Just Published instead of hovering my mouse, it takes me to a page suggesting I seem lost and I'm attempting to access a page that doesn't exist.

My only issue with the design is the hover comes too quick. I tend to mouse around a lot, and jump tabs while watching videos and even if I am getting ready to tab out for a moment, the hover effect blocking the video sort of irritates. If it pushed the rest of the video down below the hover, that'd be okay, or a slightly longer hover, that'd be good.

Other than the hover effect, I don't mind the layout personally. Sort of a more "Theater mode", which both YouTube and Twitch offer as an option. I'd say perhaps offer this new Theater mode as the default, and if a user sets it to "normal" than allow for that (non-users get a cookie that expires quicker rather than an option setting).

I'm not going to break much new ground with the rest, most of it has been stated and I'm echoing with my own thoughts.

The loss of channels seems odd. Either put it under the submitter or under the description. Same with number of views and video length.

The who voted could be put into the hover effect over the vote counter, again with a small delay.

Perhaps time stamps on the comments.

I'm looking at this via a desktop I should note, with a 1080 screen, so the layout works so far. The vote buttons for me are in a good spot. How this works via mobile I don't know yet.

I preferred the old version of listing the age of comments over the newer one, where you have to mouse over it to see it. Just my preference.

So now im finding myself opening videos by left clicking my mouse and opening 'open link it new tab' so i can avoid having to use the new sub menu to get to where i need to go. May be more difficult due to i'm just not use to it yet. Nevertheless my work around is easier for me is it just me?

Your video, Mouse Trap Jenga, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

I have been playing FALLOUT 3 for a couple days. FREEAKING COOL GAME !

Too bad I JUST figured out how to use the targeting system, also known as the fighting system or whatnot - I have been playing/aiming like I was in a online deathmatch, people die much faster now. YAY for learning.

I do not play any flight games or space because I do not have a control stick, mouse is not my thing for flight.

Yeah that was a pretty bad trap. Sure the mouse was "careful" in getting his reward, but to be honest that food at least needed to be up higher in that particular setup. But, I think there happens to be too much weight holding that clothes pin in place; they definitely need to balance the weight far finer, so that even a very, very small movement or tug can collapse the setup.

Or you could at the very least make sure the rope covered all four sides of the food (though, again it should have been slightly more out of reach--it was practically right in the mouse's hands which defeated the purpose of the entire design).

The mouse has to eat everyday, but you only have to catch him once.

Not so much cleverness on the mouse's part as it is a failure on the trap-builder.