All the content is still here. The videos, comments, playlists and people are all still standing in the face of today's syftopianfuture. It's not the end of the colander. If we let this bring us down, then the errorists have truly won.

Long live the sift and it's awesome citizenry!

Remember: Yes we can!

Nothing can stand in the way of millions of geeks sifting for change.

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

Feel free to grouse, it's warranted. Some of the star point valuations and ranks are still in flux - this may get better over the day.

It's not great but try to look forward not back. Focus on getting a submission sifted and take it from there. That's my philosophy right now. If all the comments had gone that would have been a real big deal.

Everything I had was decimated. Probably most of the votes won't be coming back, since the members that originally cast them are also gone.

But we'll survive this, I think, and rebuild. After a month or so, we'll be functioning as well as before, hopefully.

Right now I'm looking at this as an opportunity to really go through people's queue and discover a lot of great stuff I hadn't seen before and vote vote vote. Everyone still has their starpoints and things are coming back together. So glad at least all the comments are intact and the video submissions etc etc and really this could have been a lot worse. As far as catastrophes go, this isn't so bad. All we lost were some votes and yeah that really truly sucks .. but what's done is done and I for one am taking the time to explore the sift anew.

Don't get depressed about it. Of all the things in life that can get you down, this should be one of the last. I love this community too, and that's what I value the most - the people. I'd throw away all my videos to get some old members back. I'm glad you came back, oxdottir.

We're like a family that lost our home to a natural disaster. A lot of what we had has been lost, but we still have each other.

*group hug*

Remember, sometimes you have to lose something before you realize how dear it was.

I think you ( and many others) are making the mistaken notion of thinking votes are valuable. They really aren't. Yes, they are an important part of how the site works but what matters the most is the community and the content of the videos. It could have been much worse, for example not even having your videos, or all the comments disappearing, etc.

I have found excellent videos here, excellent comments too. Look at what is taking place right now: The site had a problem and everyone is helping each other and helping the site recover. That's what matters, votes and stats are just temporary markers, they come and go.

I experienced something similar on another site. The content was 90% gone. What did more than half of the people do? they left instead of helping out like the members here are doing. Then a month later when most things were starting to run in place again, many came back to continue leeching and complaining without ever contributing. Think about that.

You are NOT your votes

mauz, who the hell are you to say votes aren't important? I think they are. They are the premise the whole site runs on. We are very lucky that no more than those were lost, because I have no doubt that many would abandon ship in that case. This is not the end of the world, but that doesn't mean it's not fucking important.

oxdottir, I was where you are last night. It sucks, but things are shaping up now. You can be in my clique? *hug*

>> ^gwiz665:
mauz, who the hell are you to say votes aren't important? I think they are. They are the premise the whole site runs on. We are very lucky that no more than those were lost, because I have no doubt that many would abandon ship in that case. This is not the end of the world, but that doesn't mean it's not fucking important.
oxdottir, I was where you are last night. It sucks, but things are shaping up now. You can be in my clique? hug


who the hell are you to think they are? that type of question goes nowhere.

Read my post again. I did not say they were not important. To focus on votes as if they were the ultimate factor is fallacious. If I cared that much about votes I would not have posted many of the videos I have posted.

Secondly, you are not taking the context of this blog into consideration. The guy is saying he feels like his videos died because the votes are gone. Do you agree with that? The effort is not lost because people enjoyed his contributions and the content is still on the site, and many are not seeing that because they are focused on votes and ranks. I was ranked 25 at one point, then came back after months of being absent to a 120 rank and a 3rd of my videos (and consequently votes) gone because of that old system of killing the video if the person did not fix it in 3 days. So what? I did not focus on that, I only continued to sift things I considered worth sharing. THAT is the whole premise the site runs on. The votes are the tool used for that premise.

I'm kind of in the same place as Oxdottir. VideoSift was the first "social" site I used where stuff I submitted actually got votes and landed on the front page and gave me a bit of recognition among the masses. I know it's petty and doesn't really matter, but I'm just feeling a bit discouraged now. Nevertheless, I don't want to just give up on it and I really want to see the site get back on its feet, as it was and is a great community.

I use this site for work. I play videos in class sometimes. The way I do it is by sorting by votes. Those votes meant something in terms of reactions of many, many people. All that is gone. Now, if you look for all the videos ever submitted in the pets channel, does sorting them by votes mean anything? Could a person ever look at a representative sample of the hundreds of pet videos? It might as well be youtube in terms of information overload. The sift part of videosift is gone.

>> ^oxdottir:
I use this site for work. I play videos in class sometimes. The way I do it is by sorting by votes. Those votes meant something in terms of reactions of many, many people. All that is gone. Now, if you look for all the videos ever submitted in the pets channel, does sorting them by votes mean anything? Could a person ever look at a representative sample of the hundreds of pet videos? It might as well be youtube in terms of information overload. The sift part of videosift is gone.


You're right about that part. But there is always something to gain. Many excellent videos are missed because people concentrate on what is grabbing the most votes.

>> ^oxdottir:
I use this site for work. I play videos in class sometimes. The way I do it is by sorting by votes. Those votes meant something in terms of reactions of many, many people. All that is gone. Now, if you look for all the videos ever submitted in the pets channel, does sorting them by votes mean anything? Could a person ever look at a representative sample of the hundreds of pet videos? It might as well be youtube in terms of information overload. The sift part of videosift is gone.


I do hope that it will be back at some point, but for now, ya, it's gone.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
All the content is still here. The videos, comments, playlists and people are all still standing in the face of today's syftopianfuture. It's not the end of the colander. If we let this bring us down, then the errorists have truly won.
Long live the sift and it's awesome citizenry!


It might be that simple for some, but not for others. I'll share something here I hadn't posted publicly yet in all the time I've been here. This is why I'm so hung up on the prison system and the drug war in general. I shared it with one person in private but so far I've always just said it isn't relevant in public posts.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=216&topic_id=3703&mesg_id=3722

I wrote that on request for someone who thought it might help them with something, wouldn't have put it on record otherwise but there it is. I do what I do so we'll stop making new people like me.

I've spent much of the last 20 years fighting this stuff, full time the last 10 or so and part time in increasing amounts before that. For personal reasons I can't do it anymore and I've posted that here before, it's all getting closer to the surface again and I can't do this like that. The loss of the post "cops say legalize drugs" is something I'll probably never be able to reproduce and the only reason it got as many votes as it did was the debate, not the post itself.

For some it's the loss of some status and some votes. For me it was the loss of one of the few records I had of the last few years and it's a reference that's still posted in other places. Going to look pretty pathetic as a reference the way it is and there isn't a damned thing I can do about it.

Yeah, I'm pretty depressed too.

^That's what I'm most depressed about too. Videos that were topical and really great at the time are not going to get near the votes they did, and that's a shame.

Still, I'm getting optimistic. I rarely go back and see old videos again unless it's music or really, really good, so I guess I'll survive this.

Hell, I'm just being a shit I guess. Sorry about that. Lost an animal early today and just let the two of them together get to me, haven't been in a great mood to start with. With the number of people we have here we can't do this every time one of us has a rough time or something. I'll try to shut up about it here and deal with it otherwise in a few days when I'm better suited for it maybe.

If it's any consolation .. I understand. My border collie friend of 15 years died this last Christmas and honestly I'm no where near over it or coping with it yet. I'm truly sorry for your loss.

On the positive .. as far as whatever votes might mean for you .. they may be coming back:
http://www.videosift.com/poll/Should-We-Restore-JUST-Vote-Counts-to-Videos

Hey, it's all good again. You can come back now.