There are so many cool improvements and refinements that could be made around the pure idea of 'sifting, why bloat? Why not keep streamlining and trimming things to perfection instead? You have a great formula that can be refined.

Already we have the option to add text and links to video posts but most people don't do that because it takes a LOT of work.
It would be "great" but it wouldn't happen. Nobody asked for it.

Namechange? wtf? Focus not featurecreep!

I'll sit down now.

I agree with Mink generally, we shouldn't try to overshoot the main focus of the site.

But at the same time I feel there is space for creating media content posts centering around a video, we had Fedquip's Feynmann post where users added relevant information via comments and I occasionally also post references from other sites to fill out a post with information.

I always wanted someway of adding more content, such as images, formatted and linked text and such but all under the main video, almost like a extend description with media content. This would really flesh out some posts, in other cases some users can use it to create topics of discussion or give their view point on a particular subject.

Though any such system should have a user based restriction, at least Gold Star level.

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Ha. Lovely - thanks MINK. Focus in not my strong suite - I'll admit.

I crave change - but I think it comes from being on the site for so long every day for the last 20 months - it feels like we've been all about refining and focusing over that period. Maybe I should go outside.

First of all, please, no name change...

I'd hate to bring marketing into a nice comunity like this but changing the name of something you are so familiar with would be difficult (though not impossible) to have the same level of comfortability with.

I think it's quite clear the the Sift's been growing quite quickly in the past year (well, I guess I don't ahve the statistics...is it? It feels like it to me) and that would definitely have impact on the Sift, wheter it be quality, content, discussions, and other aspects of what makes the Sift so great.

In other words, I think that the better focus would be on thinking about hthe limit of how much you want the Sift to grow, and the direction in terms of scalability. I think that finding a way to include incentives and functions to make video posts more "filling" with other content, wheter it be links, images, would be nice addition without having to sacrifice the old model of viewing videos.

If you wish to experiment with other content taking importance, I think you could always create a new ***Sift, like ImageSift, all the while keeping an eye on future integration of the different Sifts that would be created, and see where it goes. Kind of like how Google experiements with its products.

Because after all, in my very humble opinion, what probably attracted this great community to VideoSift is its essence - Video.

Why not use the Channel Talks for this? It would keep it here, but topical. This thread discusses possibilities for getting more out of the various talk pages. Add a WYSIWYG editor to make things easier and then let folks post whatever they have in mind. We'll definitely need a News Channel...

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^ That idea has a lot of merit. The tough thing with Channel Talk posts is that they lose visibility. I know this is being discussed in that thread.

What about mixing in Sift Talk posts with front page content? I think this has been brought up before and was met with boos and hisses, but I like the idea. Maybe just the créme de la créme via a *front invocation.

I wouldn't mind a summary post on the front page. We could use the *quality invocation for that.

Awarding dag with one star point for this contribution to Sift Talk - declared quality by mlx.

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Yeah - I like that even better - it would make us be more judicious with our Quality invocations that way. We wouldn't want to send just any old post to the front page.

dag... i think this is very much cabin fever at work, it is very very difficult to step back and look at what you have if you are the guy that built it, like it's hard to listen to a recording of your own voice.

however i like the farhad approach of allowing more detaild fedquip/farhad style submissions... i just think we shouldn't base the site on anything but sifting videos, because a tough kernel is what keeps things on track. every post should start with a vid link and then have a wysiwyg description box that can be as short or as long as you like. (although if you allow uploading images you end up with security and bandwidth issues, no?)

perhaps posters could tag their posts *extra (on the same level as * long) and then if other members think their post is not *extra enough they can *notextra.

so, you can have your deep documents in the same queue as simple posts, but they must all be based on the video submission. The *extra tag would be a badge of honour. Then people would have the incentive to *extrafy their posts to get them more attention in the queue. *extra posts could be bold when in the top 15 or expiring soon list.

The key technology that makes this site possible is embedding. We embed the content from other sites and add metadata - comments,tags,voting. How is content for other types embeddable? If embedding isn't possible, is it a digg/delicious-style site with a smarter better looking community?

Just thought of one example, sort of: podcasts. These are freely available online and easy to embed. But even they aren't at the same URL forever. A couple of my favorites, CarTalk and TAL, only keep one or a few episodes online, so they're very ephemeral.

I agree with the other comments that changing the focus/muddying the waters is dangerous. A sandbox would make sense IMO . ***Sift would make sense.

Keep the name!

heh.....winkler is a CarTalk guy....ehhhe heh hhehe

(*those greesemonkey bros.,rule)

I'll quote my P.R. professor, Dr. Robert I. Alotta - Dr. Bob to us:

"If you emphasize everything, you emphasize nothing."


He originated the first "I HEART" - "I HEART Philadelphia."

agreed, too much content will dilute, dilute, dilute (Dr. Bronner RULES!)

That said, would sister sites be an option? LinkSIFT? FlashSIFT? BlogSIFT? and so on...

I don't think I'd like such a dramatic change.

I think, as lertad said, if you want to do something completely different, it would be better to do it with a new site.
Using the same engine, maybe the same user database, but keep the line firmly drawn: this is videosift, that other one is another thing.

Also, winkler1 has a very good point.

If ain't obvious now, there is a reason we're all here. You can do what you want to fracture that, but short of killing it outright....

Yes, YDJ and others have it. If you're aching to experiment..do the sister sites. Memberships can cross over to them.

A PhotoSift would be fun. An image is worth a thousand comments

Good thing dag has the equivalent of a council of learned elders (and teenagers) here to guide him through his thought processes.