*This post discusses the current star point award system in VideoSift and how it ultimately goes against its mission of collecting a database of better quality videos from the internet.

*The post is made recognizing that a star point is considered a higher commodity value than a power point. Collecting star point allows users to gain higher administrative powers, thus a means of upward mobility in user status and more tools that help their participation on the website. Power points have a lesser commodity value since it only allows users to remain in the same status.



I'll be honest and admit that I'm not the most vigilant sifter when it comes to scouring the internet for new and interesting videos. I do sift when I see a video that I have enjoyed and nobody has sifted it yet, but often good videos get sifted by more enterprising members.

This forces me to scavenge for videos of lesser qualities or contrary to my interests. I was surprised to find myself at one point sifting videos that I did not personally enjoy, but was sifting them anyway because I knew they had a higher chance of being sifted. And at some point of my sifting career I found myself spending more efforts on creating a catchier title for my sift rather than putting more efforts trying to find a higher quality video.

I was sad to find myself censoring my own interests just to gain a star point. I found it contradictory to my own interests and decided to stop myself from doing so. But then suddenly I realized I had placed myself in a situation where I had no other means to gain a star point.

Presenting the video in a more approachable and tasteful manner is a skill and adds to the viewing experience and I am not speaking against it. But I am pointing out the fact that sometimes it is being used to mask the lacking quality of the submitted video, and takes away from putting my efforts into seeking and submitting a video of higher quality.

And I believe this is happening because of the way our current star points system is set. There is no other way to earn a star point other than getting a video sifted. And this system pushes its users to submit any videos, as long as they get sifted. This goes against the founding spirit of VideoSift, setting out to gather quality videos over the internet. The current system no longer promote quality, but promotes more of better presentation skills and identifying existing public interests. Again, both traits are significant in its own right, but often does not necessarily focus on quality control.

I believe that members should be rewarded for contributing to VideoSift by maintaining its higher quality.

VideoSift has grown enough that it is becoming more difficult to notice a good sift through piles upon piles of queued and unsifted videos floating around in the system, which has made it difficult for real quality sifts to be noticed. Members who recognize the values of these unsifted videos and promoting them to the front page to give them better recognition should be awarded for their efforts with a star point.

Members who fix embed codes should also be rewarded with a star point. By making existing good sifts available in the system not only remove redundancy in the VideoSift system, but also gives its members an opportunity to get a star point without having to resort to lesser quality videos, which ends up clogging up the system with junk.

Fixing embeds did give you a star point some time ago, but recently I've noticed that you can no longer earn star points from doing either of these things, instead replaced by a power point. I would like to know why it is no longer the case to earn a star point from fixing embeds in VideoSift, and what different ways are available to earn a star point other than having a video sifted. I visited the FAQ section to see what other ways I could earn star points on VideoSift, but I couldn't find any mention so far.