Erics PSA: Don't forget to vote for the videos you like

It seems fewer sifters are voting on videos these days, and it's becoming increasingly more difficult to get videos sifted for those who post them. I'm sure it's obvious to everyone that traffic is just a fraction of what it once was, but it seems to me the ratio of sifters viewing videos to voting for them has gone down quite a bit. Not sure why that might be. I was wondering if it may be that more people are on mobile devices, and that makes it more difficult to cast votes (i've never owned a smartphone so don't know if it's more difficult) or just not as inclined to vote when mobile. Anyway if you happen to have cut back on voting do tell if it's for any particular reason.
gwiz665 says...

I can only speak for myself, but I feel like the community that was present here 5 years ago has all but evaporated, so I don't really come around to vote so much anymore. I guess, reddit, imgur etc have really taken hold too, so the content that would be big here, is often there first because of the huge user base. I dunno.

I also loathe the new design here, which has sorta scared me off. It's a shame really, but it's the way things go.

MilkmanDan says...

I'm almost never in Sift Talk, but I noticed this too. Used to be that to make the top 15 a video would have to get well over the 10-vote generic "sifted" status, but recently I've seen several occasions when there aren't enough videos with 10+ votes to even fill out the top 15 completely.

I'm not an extremely long-time sifter, I've had an account here for 8 years and lurked for probably a couple before that. But in general, the main reasons that I actually joined the community here when I rarely do anything more than lurk (no facebook / reddit / whatever for me) still apply:

Standard YouTube isn't a community, it is a toxic wasteland. Trolls are the rule, not the exception. By far.

On the Sift, I rarely participate by actually posting videos, but the comments sections on videos here are a massive breath of fresh air compared to other sites (particularly YouTube). That's what drew me here and has kept me here.


That being said, I think we've been losing some of the openness to different opinions that has been a real strength of the sift community. With such a divisive US President, I'm sure some of that is inevitable. But, while we've always been better about that than elsewhere on the internet, I think we're losing some of that advantage.

I think the sift leans left -- not extreme, but noticeably. I used to lean moderately right, although generally more in the middle on social issues. My time on the sift (and also NOT living in the US) has pushed me more to the left, again particularly on social issues, but even on the meat-and-potatoes stuff that I think actually belongs in the realm of government. I'm still to the right of sift average, but closer than I was. Credit for that shift in my viewpoints is definitely in part due to the sane, open-minded, and accommodating debates in comments here.

I recognize that it is hard to be accommodating to some of the sifters that are further to the right than I ever was. A certain basketball coach comes to mind. But even when viewpoints from sources like that veer into territory that we find intolerable, I think we here at the sift used to be better about rationally but firmly voicing disagreement without sort of ... picking a fight. If that makes sense.

Just speaking for myself, I think I've probably been upvoting videos less because a higher percentage of what is being sifted is political, and I get fatigued with the volume of that. That's very much tied in to the current situation and media environment, so there isn't necessarily anything to be done about it, but I'd wager that is partially responsible for the lower traffic beyond just myself.

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