I don't know if this has been suggested in the past or not. If it has, feel free to tell me and ignore this post .

I've been reading a bit around VS in the past few days and came upon three issues that are frequently brought up: Quality of submissions is dropping, people can't keep up with the new stuff anymore and newbies are frustrated that their videos don't get sifted as well as similar videos by the old folks around here.

The following possibility has been fermenting in the back of my head for a few days now. I'd like to hear what you think of this.

I have a suggestion that might alleveate both issues: Sift Pools. They are like a cross between playlists, personal queues and the Unsifted video pool. I was thinking of them having the following attributes:

• Like playlists, video pool have a name (and thus probably a topic, which the videos in the pool should be in)


• Like playlists, members can create their own video pools


• Like the unsifted pool, people can post to another members video pools


• People can subscribe to other peoples video pools


• Optionally, video pools can be declared public (anyone can join) or private (only upon invitation)


• Like the PQueue, videos don't expire


• Videos posted to a video pool don't show up in the Unsifted pool

Of course, this approach has a few pros and cons. Those that I thought of follow.

Pros:

• Reduce the traffic on the unsifted pool


• Allows special interest groups to form, reducing the amount of fringe interest videos in the Unsifted pool


• Allows people who just want to share videos with certain other members to opt out of the point race (at least with those videos)


• May increase the quality of videos in the Unsifted pool


• Reduces frustration among new members who might feel "rejected" when video after video doesn't get the 10 needed votes

Cons:

• Increases the amount of traffic on video sift. By what factor I really have no idea.


• _May_ let the community fracture. OTOH, after a certain critical mass in member numbers is reached, the community will fracture anyway. The way of all communities.


• Will probably increase the database complexity by a fair amount on the code level

There are bound to be problems with this idea that I haven't thought of, so feel free to bring them up.