Not a dupe. This is the original vid without the sound effects.

Obviously the kitty is just trying to print out the best lolcats of the day, and the damn paper feed isn't working.

I've done this a few times myself...

>> ^MINK:
The underlying problem is that people sift stuff for popularity, rather than from their love of sharing video. The incentive system here is not conducive to "good" sifting. We've all posted crap we wouldn't normally post but we know it's going to get upvotes, and we've all suppressed good stuff that isn't worth sifting because it's so obscure, or been disheartened when something super interesting is buried under a pile of lolcats. Do people really love lolcats this much? or is it partly because we made a biased reward scheme specifically for short videos that make you smile?


What incentive system would work better? I'm struggling to think of one that doesn't have inherent flaws.

I enjoy seeing the best videos in catsanddogs to take a populist channel but inevitably we accept they are going to crowd out obscure music videos for example. At this point it depends on your tastes as to whether that is a problem or not. Some would say you're getting the best of all kinds of video content and Videosift is just doing fine.

But if the site is too populist it must come down to the channels that are allowed. Those are the primary filters and encourage certain kind of content. If Videosift actively discouraged submissions of cats and people face-planting then I'm sure the place would look alot different. That not being the case you can start to use your downvote as Farhad says but this feels like playing whack-a-mole.

My only suggestion is that there could be a place (something better than Beggar's Canyon) that bridges the gap between the obscurity of personal queues and the promotion of videos back to the unsifted listing. How about a Recommended Gems page where channel owners can put stuff on a weekly basis? I don't know how such content would be organised exactly but it should be trivial to switch between channels and perhaps it would be less confusing if the page *didn't* load up the channel subdomain.

the current system sifts out the bottom 50% of internet videos really well (shitty technical quality, totally boring, youtube flotsam, snuff, these things die in the queue)

The other 50% is just kinda thrown up in the air to see who salutes.

The number of videos on here has increased dramatically, and the popular stuff has been subsidised even more, creating a feedback loop that hides the more obscure stuff that less people like (but they like it A LOT). Videosift is set up as a popularity contest so the "bias" here is "towards popular". That's what you get when you try to be egalitarian, you suppress the obscure.

The top 15 is indeed useful but skewed towards "things that a lot of different people agree is upvotey". This predictably leads to a lot of comedy, cats and CCTV. It's useful as a "Channel One" for the internet, but you don't always want to watch channel one.

Also: titles, tags and categories are screwed so you can't rely on search.

Anyway in answer to the poll, i don't think 10 or 12 would make any difference. The site is set up so that "most things sift" and unfortunately that means that "gems are missed". But the vote threshold is not the thing to fuck with, unless you are going to index it to the number of voting members, and i think if you did that we would have to increase it to 30.

The only change I would find useful in the queue would be some kind of algorithm that removes the time zone bias.

The underlying problem is that people sift stuff for popularity, rather than from their love of sharing video. The incentive system here is not conducive to "good" sifting. We've all posted crap we wouldn't normally post but we know it's going to get upvotes, and we've all suppressed good stuff that isn't worth sifting because it's so obscure, or been disheartened when something super interesting is buried under a pile of lolcats. Do people really love lolcats this much? or is it partly because we made a biased reward scheme specifically for short videos that make you smile?

Hehehe, the first human lolcat

Is a japanese lolcat a rarcat?

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

I'll be on the lolcateer side, please.

i say we just split the Sift into Cerebrarians and Lolcateers and fire RPGs at each other. that's the way most other utopian egalitarian dreams have ended.

There's some good stuff in this video. There's also some truly laughable items.

My following comments are chronologically ordered with the video. They are not all meant to be examples of "laughable items".

1) He uses the first two anecdotes he mentions in exactly the same way in which he says the characters in those anecdotes used their own. In other words, he comes to a conclusion of the characters' behavior based upon supposition derived from a single experience, not upon statistically significant data.

2) The second optical illusion (moving petals) is completely static for me. I'm red-green colorblind, and I wonder if that's why?

3) "Skeptics don't state as fact that paranormal phenomena don't exist," "No paranormal claim has ever been validated by independent means."
Tautological much? Of course no paranormal claim has ever been validated, because as soon as it has been, it is no longer considered paranormal!

4) When the sunbather that has not contracted melanoma claims that sunbathing can do you no harm, he or she is correct in a certain sense. It apparently cannot do them any harm. This is where anecdotal evidence is in fact useful. If I find that I have an uncanny ability to avoid breaking my bones when I fall, then it is logical for me to conclude that the next time I fall, I won't break any bones. Obviously I can't apply that to anyone else, because it is dependent upon my own physiology, kinesthetics, athletic ability, etc. I'm happy to finally find a video like this that at least acknowledges the flip side of the coin.



I'm not entirely sure this belongs in the 'brain' channel. It is a description, not an explanation, of human behavior. If the 'Mind and Brain' channel is to have any coherence, I feel I must demand that explanation. Otherwise, any video with a description of human behavior would valid for inclusion. The end result is that any video showing human behavior (nearly every non-lolcat video on the sift) is then qualified for inclusion. I'm going to leave it for now and revisit again in a couple of days.

Hilarious. For all the positives that VS offers as a video community the first one being singled out is our LOLCat commentary.

Anyone dissing tony benn on this, seriously you need to fuck off.

He didn't fight through armed guards, he didn't battle his way onto the set, no, what he did was go on the show, and do the right thing. Which is more than any of us can do. Especially you with your fucking "oh well done" attitude, he didn't ask for your approval on a knighthood, dickhead.

"Gee, he is very brave. All of those British people without access to the internet, who can't possibly Google around to find a Palestinian charity."

Comments like that are rediculous. By your logic, why would a charity go on TV and advertise? People can simply google!

And shit, people know about world events taking place, why have news programs? People can google.

Why have ANYTHING when you have google, right!?!?!?

IF you can't work out why what you said is stupid, you're too stupid to take part in a conversation here. Go find a lolcat.

trip and snicker @ 1:40? lolcats.

This is one of the funniest videos i have ever seen on the net. Simply because of the lolcat ending.

Can any discussion of the history of the internet truly be complete without a single reference to LOLcats?

Tough! It's the internet! You're FORCED TO READ EVERYTHING EVER POSTED FOREVER. It's like hell with lolcats!

^Maybe I should start posting lolcat videos and Family Guy clips.