5 Things You Hate About Videosift

Inspired by Jeff's recent post, I thought we should include the flip side. Here's the 5 things I hate most about Videosift (again, in no particular order):

1. popularity trumping quality
2. software bugs (as rare as they are)
3. mob rule
4. the lapse of intelligent commentary
5. sifting while drunk

Step up and air your grievances! Nah, actually maybe we can figure out the things that annoy the hell out of everyone and fix them.

[edit] See my comment in the other post for reference if some of those items see out of line.
Eklek says...

Missed the other thread so I'll catch up here:

My hate/love top 5 in no particular order:
-(non)contextualized videos
-low/high resolution videos with(out) branding of the videohost
-members sifting more of what is here already/members sifting new stuff
-(un)responsive members
-community breaking/building website features

mauz15 says...

"the lapse of intelligent commentary"

Have you been to other video related websites? The comments here are above average. There are still intelligent statements being posted here. Other sites have retards, spambots, chain letters, etc.
--------------------
Only 4 things come to mind.

1. 'The waves'
A couple of videos fitting certain criteria do well, people notice this and then proceed to Supersaturate the Sift with every other similar video. Sadly, everyone seems to play along and many of them get easily promoted to the front even though they lack the quality of the first successful posts.

Example: Scientology and Zero punctuation.

2. Door to door salesman/telemarketer lingo used on video titles.
3. Extremely silly channel labeling.

Example: "Oh this video about an Optical illusion has background music in it, lets add it to the music channel!" That to me is the equivalent of watching a video and labeling it as Art just because I saw a painting hanging on a wall.

4. The manner some of the votes are given. ( "upvote just for the title", "she's hot, upvote" )

But that's more nitpicking than anything else on my part, overall VideoSift is a great place. Don't take this site for granted people.

choggie says...

mauz15 and eklek codified and otherwise delineated any further peeves or tweaks that would make this place an incredible venue....lose or otherwise adjust, the 10 things they described and see this place change dynamically overnight....as in, we don't care what anyone else thinks they hate about the place because jonny thought he'd be clever, these two summed it the fuck up!!!!

HaricotVert says...

I really only have one major gripe: bad titling and tagging practices. This is a huge problem when it comes to finding dupes. Sure, some titles or tags can get a laugh for extra votes or to entice people to watch, but doing so just defeats the purpose of having titles and tags in the first place.

Of course, I realize that tags and titles are input by the user, so there is almost no way to regulate this.

jonny says...

Hate is a strong word, but I used it for symmetry with the Jeff's post. Yeah, I'm kinda ocd like that. The whole post was partly in jest, but even in its more serious half, I didn't intend it to be just a bitch session. On the funny side, I half expected lists like "jonny, jonny drunk, jonny's complaints, ...", which I'm sure to get now. And possibly on the serious side too.

I hoped there might be one or two things pervading all the serious answers. If it's something we can work to fix, then it's a good thing. Besides, it seems more in line with the philosophy of VS than saying I think such-and-such sucks, and here's the way it ought to be (which I do all too frequently).


I should edit my list above to put eric's thing right at the top. That is probably one of the hardest things to take. Unfortunately, I doubt there's much we can do about that - people move on, flame out, get bored, etc. There's always going to be some turn over in any community, online or in meatspace.

kulpims says...

1. sifting sober
2. being up all night and waking up all fucked up the next morning
3. the urge to comment on things i know nothing about
4. cats and dogs. but mostly cats of the * cute kind
5. sifting sober

randomize says...

To jonny and eric: Yeah, people move on, so what? We are getting new and highly active members all the time! see LadyDeath, Zonbie, and mintbbb to name a few. It's just the turning of the sheets, refreshing the opinions that become so cemented with the bedrock of the site with new fresher opinions that add a breath of air to our daily sifting.

bluecliff says...

THE VIDEO-AGGREGATOR
HATE SONG

I hate Krupo, I hate dagg
I hate the sites elusive lag

I hate creationists, and more
the atheistic-gospel bore,
humming like a seashell
on the lonely shore.

I hate clips from the Daily show.
Evolution in actions smug ho ho.
When political clips go far
You cant order a stiff one from the bar
And weeping into electronic beer
Is a pastime only for the queer.

I hate the environmentalist
I hate the fundamentalist
(if I continue with this gist
It'll be too long a list)

And I also have to mention
All the people
Who use the awful coinage - sheeple
- Need a linguists strict attention.


I hate that even on the net
a stupid comment can make you sweat
(Why does the folly of the Other
make you want to kill your Brother?)

And,
in the end,
after all the sifting,
My eyes are myopic,
My heart misanthropic,
And my brainwaves off topic.

So, dear friend, if by chance wee meet,
In the valley of unrest
Down by a hypertexted street.
If you see my post
- just vote for it.

ant says...

1. Slow speed when they happen.
2. People beating me in submitting videos that I wanted to submit.
3. Lack of votes in my submitted videos.
4. Siftbot is a jerk.
5. VS addiction. (thanks a lot ).
6. Lack of livemusic for live music videos.

alien_concept says...

Not hate otherwise I wouldn't bother being here, but the things that annoy me occasionally would be:

1. The randomness of the unsifted vids - is there any reason that you can submit a vid sometimes and it's in the second or third page within minutes?
2. Obvious nepotism - Be supportive of people of course, but for gods sake at least be honest with your upvotes.
3. People who watch a vid that they already know they will downvote. If something is not to your taste and it's obvious from the title and tags, why watch it in the first place?

And this is just an opinion, it doesn't really annoy me at all, but I really don't see the point in self promoting a video. Surely the fact you've submitted it in the first place is a promotion in itself. Promoting should be about someone else being impressed and giving away a promote for that reason.

jonny says...

@randomize - well, yeah, that's kind of what I was saying. But like twiddles and eric pointed out, these people are not replaceable and some of us really miss them. Even though I didn't interact with her too much, I especially miss Raven. She really is one of a kind.

@alien_concept - If by self promotion, you mean the invocation, then yeah, I agree. If you are referring to fedquip's comment, though, I think he is talking about a larger idea. He's really big on contextualizing his videos. And that often means providing links back to other videos and sites to which he has some connection. There's probably more, but I should let him speak for himself.

@everyone - I had some commentary on what is apparently the most common theme in this thread, the overall degrading quality of sifted videos, but I'll wait for others to chime in. Ideas for raising quality levels most welcome.

swampgirl says...

Quality Jonny? I'll give you quality... I've had a couple of choice Shatner clips I've saved up for when I'm in the MOOD. Wash the shot glasses, Jonny.

Damn thunderstorms tonight. We will prevail! I'll make you proud.

E_Nygma says...

this is on topic but not in format. i agree that losing people sucks; i personally miss people who dont even know me, since they quit while i was still lurking. but this is an online community, and truth be told i dont miss them enough to do something major about it. if you care enough about someone and actually connect with them, contact them. exchanging thoughts and ideas with members isn't limited to an online forum or a sifttalk. there's always the possibility of actual human interaction, either in person or via webcam.

i know i'm still a newbie compared to the founding fathers and mothers of this site, but i feel i've contributed enough that i have the privilege of chastising folks whose complaints are trumped by inaction. if you want better quality videos, commit wholeheartedly to that goal. downvote all non-quality ones and only sift worthy ones. don't ever be tempted to vote up something that strikes you as merely likeable or laugh-out-loud ridiculous. if you can't be bound by your own empiric rules, don't expect others to do the same. if you miss people, ask them to come back or find out where they've gone and why. tides turn; people come and go. and some don't even bother to capitalize sentences.

gwiz665 says...

Oh, and to actually contribute to the discourse: I hate it when people don't like what I like (see my PQ).

The declining quality of the sift is a natural progression, because we are a lot more people than we used to be. By making it harder to get through the sift, we won't increase quality, we'll merely only get all the catchy things through.

MINK says...

1. membership policy

(i used to be impressed that this site actually had a barrier to entry, the P system was genius, no selflinking was genius, the users here were mostly quality because of it, i guess i kinda thought the barrier to entry might rise over time to keep the "normal" people out... critical mass was reached... i see no need to have an open membership policy after the site is buzzing enough. look what happened. we got millions of new low quality members and the old ones left)

2. no interface designer or graphic designer, and no clear definition of the project, resulting in the coder doing what he does best i.e. coding and coding and coding and coding regardless of outcome, and the outcome can't be measured anyway because there was no definition of the project.

3. bizarre belief in web 2.0 voodoo despite all the evidence against it and the many rational reasons to totally reject it.

4. using the excuse that "videosift is better than youtube" to defend all sorts of retarded behaviour.

5. Should be called UserSift because the users define the content of the site, so it's more important to collect the right users than it is to worry about individual videos being up/downvoted. big picture, people.

alien_concept says...

I wasn't aiming the self promotion thing at Fedquip no, he'd already explained what he does and why. Just in general it seems pointless to me to promote your own video using the invocation, especially when it's not even out of unsifted yet. I would rather be able to use my power point to double vote, there are loads of times when i like a vid so much I wish I could give it two upvotes, rather than using a promote and it maybe not making a difference.

I know nothing about the people who have left or why, but I would imagine it has more to do with getting on with their lives than anything else? People take breaks, sometimes they come back. Does it really have to be about poor quality videos or users? Of course the longer you go on the less videos out there to choose from so it's bound to happen like that.

I'm new obviously, so i'm probably way off with what i'm saying, but I have no doubt that i'll be set straight if so

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