i have two views on downvote voting. Its good, because if a video is rubbish you can help to get it out of the queue. however, I have recieved alot of downvotes on videos that lots of other people have liked and voted for, especcially from one person.

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

Thanks for raising this Krupo. It does seem to provoke a lot of emotion. I think it must be human nature to feel offeneded when someone expresses a negative opinion about something you like.

We could stop the ad hominem attacks by making negative voting anonymous, and only giving a count of negative votes on the bottom. But I think people would still be cranky about negative votes.

Does anyone know of any other sites that use negative voting? Digg uses it for comments, but not for posts. The "Polish Digg" http://www.wykop.pl/ uses it, but I don't read Polish, so it's hard to guage the experience there.

I'm open to all input on the negative vote. We could even remove it, if enough people weigh in that it's not a good feature. maybe we need a "poll" feature for this.

Perhaps the voting should all be anonymous, both up and down. Since this has become a volatile issue, it would be a shame to have matters turn into petty vengeances. That could easily happen. There are a lot of members we really don't know yet.

I do think we need a down vote, but I'm concerned about those that have become trigger-happy. Some videos could be discarded very quickly without giving most folks a chance to weigh in. I want to suggest a longer time limit on the “-2” for this reason – 24 hours, maybe?

As for issues of taste . . . well . . . I believe this was set up as a democratic site except for certain videos that are forbidden. The group will have to flesh out the definition of “is ” for the borderline cases. I remember from civics class that certain things are left up to local community standards. That will be something that will evolve here.

If it is any consolation, issues of taste plague the art education community when it comes to evaluating art. There was an article on the topic in a national art education journal. That is whole other can of worms

Interesting discussion...I admit that when I see a vote against a video, it makes me think feel bad that the person(s) didn't like it. But I'm coming to realize that some people vote on every single video...either it's a thumbs up or a thumbs down. If we all had that philosophy, I'm sure this place would have a very different content line-up. After all, most of us just pass on the ones we don't like.

I think that because this place is a community as well as a "video post-up" we might feel as if it's a slight against us if someone votes against a video. I know I do. It's kind of like saying, "I don't like your taste in videos." It's for that very reason that I don't vote videos down...I tried it and it made me feel bad. All diiiirty-like.

This is just my opinion...adding my thoughts in. I like the idea behind the down-vote, but in execution it seems kind of mean. Especially since there is a ranking system on votes for users.

The question is what we want: do we want videos that appeal to everyone, or videos that appeal to a large number of people? If people downvote consistently, then videos which tend to inspire either love or hate will not make the cut, since the 'hates' will effectivly cancel out the 'loves'. This also means that niche videos which appeal to people with a certain hobby but are boring to everyone else won't tend to make it to the front either.

I would prefer no downvoting myself, just because I would prefer to find one really interesting video (that may not be to everyone's taste) than to see the same ten videos that are circulating around everywhere else.

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

Well, I'm not hearing a lot of support for the down vote. I think I'll put a link to this thread in a prominant place. See if we can get more of a consensus.

The down vote's days may very well be numbered ...

I think the downvote is useful, but only if used with caution...there should be accountablility. Maybe you could add a tab on our profile pages for downvotes instead of all on one page, and each downvote must be explained. If a person continually downvotes just to be an ass, say reaches a certain number in a given month, then they could be restricted. Or even banned.

Just my 2 cents...

I think eliminating it isn't completely necessary - it does do good sometime; last night a couple of bronze stars eliminated a dupe vid with down votes before gold stars had time to wander over to hit the big "D".

There are issues, though, (I agree with daphne's points) but I think they can be fixed.

One potential easy & simple solution, which mlx's comment inspired, is to set-up an up/down ratio.

It's the VS community's way of saying, "okay, you may find 1 video very very bad (the intent of downvotes), but you should find X good ones too."

This way you prevent trigger-happiness.

And this way we don't completely abandon what can be a useful tool in some cases, but declare as a community that we want people to pass (ignore, no vote) more often than reject (downvote).

A 10:1 (10 upvotes allow 1 down) ratio, to pick an arbitrary but potential figure, could accomplish this; the figure could be tweaked as thought appropriate, of course.

Anonymity is one potential answer, but I think part of the fun of the VS system is the "accountability" you have for your votes, which may make you think "do I want to be associated with a vid like this"?

What do you think of the ratio idea?

i think the ratio idea is very good. right now, the down vote gives too much power to people who are willing to use it all the time.

there's 3 choices right now: up, neutral (no vote), and down. the problem is that a couple of people are acting like there's only 2 choices, up or down, and voting down almost everything they don't like. this has the effect of those people getting their up votes to count double.

most people on videosift just ignore stuff they don't like. they don't vote down much, or ever. if no one votes down, you need to find 7 people who like your video to get it on the front page. if the DownVoter (whoever is using the down vote on everything else) likes your video and votes it *up*, you only need 6 more up votes to make the front page. but if the DownVoter doesn't like your video, you need 8 up votes total to make the front page.

that's a big difference.

just imagine what videosift would be like if everyone went through the new video queue and voted down everything they didn't vote up. (as in, all the neutral non-votes were down votes). even the most popular videos would have a hard time getting a *majority* of up votes.

with a ratio system, people would have to think more about what videos they don't like. then you could reserve the down vote for the videos that you really don't think should be promoted.

i think the ratio should be 5 to 1, or maybe 4 to 1.

one more thing: the only thing stopping the down vote from being even more unfriendly and competitive is the fact that you can see everyone's votes. anonymity would make this situation worse, i think.

Wow, I am a little late to the party. I have noticed some abuse of the down votes as well. I have been trying to decide if people are doing it in order to try to gain ranking. For instance if you are a well known sifter your videos might get down votes just to keep them in the queue. I do not know for sure that this is happening, but it seems plausible. I think this sort of down voting is certainly bad and it should be prosecuted as much as possible through some sort of system.

On the other hand I love showing up to a thread and finding several good comments from people about why a video is not a good fit for videosift. The accompanying down votes help reinforce the commentary, and its great to have the community involved as it prevents me and dag from looking like heavy handed moderators with wishy washy stances on policy. We like the community feel of the site, and in many ways the down vote helps us enforce policy without having to resort to a "well we are the admin gods and we have spoken" type philosophy.

Perhaps a limit of down votes per week would encourage people to use them more sparingly, or maybe even a limit of one per day, but dag is certainly right in that they don't seem to be very popular.

p.s. - It does sting when someone votes against a video you think is solid gold.

yeah, a limit per week is also good. maybe that limit should be total votes (up and down), or maybe just down votes.

checking the user profile of the most noticeable DownVoter, you can see that he's only been submitting videos for 10 days, but he's already made more than 300 votes.

or maybe you could earn downvotes as you receive upvotes for your videos? that way the top 15 users would have the power they deserve...

maybe that's too complicated?

What about downvotes only once a video has made it out of the queue?

I see some front page videos that kinda suck, but have 12 votes. Those are the ones that should be fair game. It's not really hurting anything to downvote then, but it does help shape the cream-of-the-crop, from the "I saw this video 100 times LAST year"

Of course, the downvotes have been used to kill dupes, if the 'seasoned' members haven't gotten to them yet.

They only "issue" anyone SHOULD have with downvoting, is some perceived 'attack' on their submissions. If you dump the downvote from the new video queue, then people can't feel persecuted or attacked. I say after 10 votes, they can be downvoted.

Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of the uncommented downvote, having been stung quite a few times myself. I do agree with plastiquemonkey that some people see only two voting options: up or down. No neutral.

If we do keep the downvote, I prefer giving out a certain number of downvotes per week (three strikes sounds like plenty to me) instead of a ratio. I'd rather see them used sparingly to get rid of utter crap than to be used for anything that doesn't match a given user's taste.

Which brings up a related point I've been meaning to suggest: if the neutral "vote" is, indeed, a vote, then I'd like to see stale videos in the queue expire.

After a certain period of time in queue, a video's just gone stale. It won't get anymore well-deserved votes. It's time to just call in the executioner and send it on its way. Would you say 10 or so days is enough time to drop a video from the queue?

oohahh,

we already cull videos from the queue after 6 days for exactly that reason. It was previously after 7 but we dropped it because we had more members voting in the queue. It is entirely possible that the number of days will continue to go down as we get more active members.

Thanks for the info, I thought I'd seen some that were in queue for longer. I stand corrected.

What is the community policy on seen-it-a-million times.

If it is new to VS, it can go as long as it isn't a dupe?
I'm seeing some ancient stuff, which everyone not on a dial-up
has seen. Is it quality, newer stuff?

And what about plain-old, not new, music videos? You get the
right new users, and this place could be filled with their
favorite bands. It'll be like MySpace. I posted a comment about
that, and was hoping someone would respond about a music video
only queue. (And I think spoof videos are great)

I've commented on this before (http://www.videosift.com/story.php?id=5414#wholecomment10752).

Imagine that you submit a video that receives 10 up-votes and 5 down-votes. The aggregate vote your video receives is 5, which is just below the threshold for making the front page or saving the video from expiration by siftbot. Is it fair that the will of a minority of voters (25%) can overrule the will of a majority of voters (75%)? IMHO, it's not.

That said, I think the down-vote should be a privilege earned by the top n number of submitters.

I like the down votes. Some of the videos are just bad or whatever to me.

I like the "limit # of downvotes per week" suggestion; it's a lot simpler than a ratio.

I have an additional refinement, based on comments from above: introduce to limit on videos in queue, but consider allowing people to go trigger-crazy on videos that have already made it to the front page. This may not be a necessary or even welcome refinement, but it's just a compromise suggestion in case, after further thought, people decide that whatever restriction is imposed is... "too restrictive."

Whatever the solution, it's certainly valuable to retain a limited downvote capability even for videos in queue in case they *really* don't deserve to make it to the front page.

joedirt: no formal policy exists on "new" vs "old", or "spoof" vs. "original" videos.
The over-arching "rule" or philosophy at VS, I've concluded/witnessed, is Quality Over All Else.

If a video meets people's "quality" standards (a subjective concept that deserves a better definition), then it should be supported. It doesn't matter if it's old or new - if something is old but a quality "classic" clip, there's no reason not to push it up.

After all, even if you and all your friends have seen a given clip, there's always a new generation of internet users coming on who may have never seen them (or youth in general who haven't seen all the stuff that are old hat for grizzled veterans and oldtimers), so there's no reason to hold back on old stuff.

oohahh: "I'd rather see them used sparingly to get rid of utter crap than to be used for anything that doesn't match a given user's taste."

I agree. There's a lot of stuff posted here that doesn't interest me much at all, but I generally just shrug it off. I think I've used only one downvote so far, and I'm in no great rush to use up another.

So a weekly ration, or a ratio of up versus down, or some other way to make people apply their downvotes in a more controlled fashion, makes sense to me.

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

Ratio would be harder for us to code, the 5 a week limit is probably doable though. I think we can put that in reasonably quickly.

I think the vote limit is a bad idea. You have to consider if your site doubles in size. Maybe you have enough gold star folks to moderate the queue.. but maybe you don't.

If the site gets more popular, you might see people submitting their own terrible videos, or spam, or pr0n. Or duplicates of the latest 'zidane' moment. (Many people don't review the queue or search before they submit). Right now you have a larger pool of folks who might downvote a new video out of the queue.

As to the unfair ratio thing.. It's a simple fix...
Videos are promoted out of queue based on positive votes only. (6 people have to like it enough)
Dumped if total is net -2, or time expires in queue.
Add additional "ratio" sift for promoted vids, just add 5 from the total, then sift as normal. (Note, this scheme doesn't use a ratio, same method currently used)
ie. 10 ups, -5 downs, +5 for making out of queue ==> 10 (stay)
ie. 10 ups, -10 downs, +5 ==> 5 (on borderline getting dumped)
ie. 7 ups, -2 down, +5 ==> 10 (video stays)
ie. 10 ups, -17 downs, +5 ==> -2 (video goes)

I'm fairly sure I have used the down vote exactly once. Generally, my philosophy is to let the will of the people decide, and if something does not appeal to me I have no problem if it appeals to others enough to make it out of the queue.

On the other hand, reading some of what y'all have written, it seems it might be part of the responsibility of being an "elder" in this community to keep the crop fresh, and to cull the videos we do not think worthy of the title "the best". This is a different approach than I've been taking, and so I am glad to see this discussion going on. I personally have sent notes in the past, out of curiousity, to people who have downvoted videos I've submitted. Hypersensitive, I seek to understand why I have been so viciously and personally attacked (j/k).

Perhaps as a community we can just encourage people to comment if they vote something down. I'm always curious, especially as to whether it is voted down because of negative qualities (it sucked or was offensive), or because of lack of merit (it was really nothing special).

As for before or after making it to the front page... I believe we need some method of purging the queue so it does not get bloated. I would suggest cutting the number of days videos linger in the queue even further, but perhaps with a "last chance" option. For example, let's say the number of days is reduced to 4. What if for the last 24 hours that video is somehow tagged -- or even put into yet another "last chance" queue -- for final review. If it does not get the required number of votes by the end of that period, out it goes. That way, we can give it another looksy and decide if we want to vote for it before it's removed; yet we can keep the queue fresh and managable. I often lose interest when the queue is too long, and I'm afraid I end up reviewing fewer submissions when the number of pages seems endless. There are so many of us now that if a video cannot garner 5 or 6 votes within a few days, it's probably not well-liked. Keep trash in there long enough, however, and it will make it to the front page.

Maybe a gentle reminder to the 2 or 3 users who are voting on every video, whether they like it or not? Perhaps the "use sparingly" never reached them. Maybe they think they are supposed to vote on every video.

I do not like the down vote either (and have yet to use it), if I don't like something I simply don't vote for it. Down votes are not needed to remove dupes, any goldstar can do that.
Having said that, I do like the idea of limiting the down votes, either my ratio or weekly limits.

oops, typo..that was supposed to be "either BY ratio" not "my" ratio. I believe the ratio idea is Krupo's
One more thing, perhaps the down vote privilege rank could be bumped up to silver...
(and why can't I edit my blog comments?)

Ok, I totally disagree with most of this, and I suppose it's because I'm a total newb here.

For one thing, 90% or more of the videos that linger in the queue eventually make it to front page. I'm not sure if it just an eventually thing, but I've submitted crap to see what happens and almost always makes it out. So as you double the users, you'll get the needed 6 votes.

If this site doubles, and you get me and other rock-the-boat users, they will assume, like most internet sites, rating are just for that, rating. Like youtube, or google, the idea is to rank vids to move up the list. So the assumption is that the up /down is to rank good vs. mediocre vids. Why get offended on a down vote? Now I see an arguement for a few users can knock a vid out of the new queue and possibility of abuse. Ok, fix that. But here's my philosophy.

I down vote total crap in the new queue. I downvote dupes (and yes there are a 100 in the queue and gold members don't take care of dupes quick enough). And after a vid has like 10 or 15 votes, I'll knock it down if I think it is mediocre.

So change the up/down buttons to approve/remove or promote/remove. That will change users behavior other than +1 / -1 mentality.

firely: there's a bit of a bug - hit "your recent comments"; you'll have the edit function enabled

coding: something we all have to realize is that if the solution requires "re-wiring" anything, the complexity of the fix is an important factor; so I totally support a hard limit vs. a ratio for that reason, among others

joedirt:
1. if 5 is not enough, dag or James can easily bump it up
2. (this is v. important): as you can tell, the majority consensus is that we don't want to so much 'punish' videos we don't like, as use it as a limited tool;
***more evidence is the fact that we don't use a 1 to 5 system like google/youtube - this means negative votes are *too* powerful, and not recommended for common use.***
I don't think redefining the arrows is especially necessary - they are arrows, not +/-'s.

Other suggestion concerning queues: how about "stages". Vids have, say, 2 to 3 days to get X votes (say, 3 or 4), and then the "full queue time" to make it out.

That way weak vids get a chance, but don't clog up the queue for too long...

sfjocko wrote: "I believe we need some method of purging the queue so it does not get bloated. I would suggest cutting the number of days videos linger in the queue even further, but perhaps with a "last chance" option."

How about adding a visible indication of a queued video's "freshness rating"?

Also, since we can view users' "Videos Voted For" list - it seems that the list is actually "videos voted for or against, but with no indication as to which" list. Am I missing something, or is that the case?

Your analysis is correct; either the text should be amended ("videos voted on"), or seperated... no doubt froma coder's POV the text change would be easier...

"firely: there's a bit of a bug - hit "your recent comments"; you'll have the edit function enabled"

--thanks Krupo, I'll remember that. (or try to type slower!)

typically i use the downvote for dupes, or for something that i find entirely inappropriate. (ie lady clapping w/ no hands) other than that, i try to remain neutral on most videos if i don't upvote for them.

i like the 5 downvotes a week thing a lot... this way we still have the ability to use it, but it's not a triggerhappy effect. not to mention (not that i've seen this yet) but it would prevent someone from logging on, getting a star, and then suddenly downvoting everything on the sift.

I've noticed one user who just got their bronze star and are trigger happy to vote down almost everything one member puts up... almost like the person has it out for you. Doesn't matter if your videos are good or bad, they will just vote down because they can or don't want your video to rise.

Now, if the video IS a dupe or a very obvious piece of crap then yes, it should be voted down. If it's new and you don't necessarily agree with it, SKIP IT and wait a couple of days.

I found several videos I didn't like but didn't vote down because I noticed majority of people liked the videos. I respect the group decision because that is what will or won't make the video to the front. There should be a limit to how many negative votes you can give to one person within a given time to prevent personal attacks should someone retaliate against you for voting down their video.

It is unfortunate that much of this is petty and immature but some people never do grow up. It's these few that ruin the experience for others and perhaps some controls should be put in. Perhaps the 100+ rating folks should be able to see the negative voters and those who are less can't see them to prevent in fighting?

I don't know. I have submitted funny videos and some that I thought the group would like but was wrong. That's ok because we all learn from each other. Videosift is a wonderful place to surf and be entertained and I believe by communicating we can iron out potential problems. Just my two cents (plus tax where applicable) :-)

Just thought of something... Perhaps there should be a week or two where no negative votes can be placed on new videos submitted... that way if the majority do bump it up, it won't get shot down right away... giving it a chance?

also forgot to mention an idea... based on another idea...

when you click the downvote, it should maybe revert to a menu that lists the most common reasons for a downvote (dupe, inappropriate, etc.) and that will be listed alongside the users names who downvoted. not even necessarily 'assigned' to the user, but maybe in a separate module titles "Reasons for Downvote:". if you have such a will to press the downvote rather than just using the power of the non-vote, i think you should also have to provide a reason, even if only in one word.

let us pray:

"Behold, O kind and most sweet Jesus, I cast myself upon my knees in Your sight, and with the most fervent desire of my soul I pray and beseech You that You would impress upon my heart lively sentiments of Faith, Hope and Charity, true repentance for my sins and a firm purpose of amendment, while with deep affection and grief of soul I ponder within myself and mentally contemplate Your five most precious wounds, having before my eyes that which David spoke in prophecy of You, O good Jesus: they have pierced my hands and feet, they have numbered all my bones."