When VideoSift started back in 2006- we wrote some basic guidelines- tenants- to guide and direct the kind of community that we hoped VideoSift would grow to be. Things like "no self-posting" - to promote altruism and socialization -- no full TV episodes- we didn't want the Sift to turn into a dump for pirated embeds. And ... no porn.

Even before the advent of sites like YouPorn and PornHub - we could tell Flash video porn would be huge. I made a conscious decision, from the very beginning of VideoSift, not to entangle VideoSift in porn. I had a few reasons for this:

1. video porn would be ubiquitous and everywhere- VideoSift could be a break from that. A place for adults, that wasn't "adult" if you catch my drift.

2. Not all of it, but some porn exploits desperate people who are at the end of their rope. I didn't want to have to sort the "good" porn from the "bad" porn - good luck going down that road.

3. I've got my own demons, people. Let's just say I have some personal issues with porn that are between me and a therapist. Since VideoSift was going to be my "home" I had a personal preference to not have it here.

The advertising thing came about six months later, when I realized that the first question any of the ad networks ask is "do you have adult content". I'm now glad that we can say no- or we would probably not be here.

We are not rolling in dough. As great as the charter subscriptions are- they only pay a small portion of our costs. We need the ad networks to stay alive. You can call it a sellout- but it's one I'm willing to make because I didn't want adult material here anyway.

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Another issue is the definition of porn. It's definitely not a black-and-white thing, and the word itself is loaded. It's not just whatever gets someone sexually excited because we're all bent a little different - especially me. (no I'm not telling what my fetish is)

But we do need a better definition- help me out in the comments with a good definition and we'll add it to the guidelines.