I've already observed a very positive shift in promotions. People seem to be using them much more sparingly, and that's exactly how it should be.

That being said...does that mean doublepromote is useless? And in that case can I have one of my power points back?

That's a great point. Yes, there's no longer any reason to double-promote. The *doublepromote invocation has been removed. Thanks!

I'm not sure where to begin so ill just start rambling. I find the promotes to be an ineffective way of showcasing a video. My eye tends to skip over the line of promoted videos as all im seeing is 3 thumbnails. The titles have been made ineffective by how small they are,and the descriptions are nonexistent. I actually skip over them to the videos with large appealing titles. Ive had two videos promoted so far and noticed they received only a couple votes when they were promoted and took off (received votes)when they dropped off the promote line and onto the front page.

You may think promotes at times clogged up the front page but when sifters realize that its way more effective(and imo it is way more effective) now to * quality a video, putting it on the front page for so much longer then a promote ever did, it will surely clog up the front page with * quality videos. I personally will be qualitying videos where i use to promote them.

That is all for now

But for all the wrong reasons. I don't like the idea that they will be bumping off someone else video and personally i think they are ineffective compared to being anywhere else on the front page. So, yes i don't see myself useing them as much.

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

Really good points, but I've been waiting a long time for an opportunity to use this:

Promoted videos honestly look like paid ads now. At least that's what I thought when I first saw them.

*quality discussion

Awarding dag with one star point for this contribution to VideoSift - declared quality by eric3579.

Sounds like quality is the way to go ... for now. I strive to be very discerning with my designations and hope that whatever push I can give is truly beneficial to the recipient. Now, if I could just get more views on my own damn submissions.

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

Hmmm. Yeah, to be honest I can see your point there.

Even IF there were 10 videos being promoted, that usually meant that 8 of those were top notch, so I really don't see why you'd restrict it to 3.
But what's worse is that you don't see who posted it, how long it is, how many views it has or the description. It doesn't give the full information and doesn't give a focus to the elements, as it should.

To be blunt;
The new design has some benefits, but also a lot of clutter. Some of the new functionalities (power point usage, promotes, new menu) are absolutely worthless compared to how they used to be.
Worthless to the point that I have several friends that are now migrating to reddit because they can't find what they're looking for here anymore. Either because of broken logic, or non-intuitive navigation.

The community is what keeps the sift going, so please consider rolling back a few things.

I can see having a restricted amount of videos at the top to save space, but is there any way they can be rotated instead having one kick the other off?

I think what helped with my brain think that was the "featured" banner over the thumbnail. Maybe change or ditch that?

Aw man, my secret * quality * doublepromote trick for just 1 powerpoint is useless now!

"I'm going to totally promote three of my videos right now and bump all the others off (because they're really good, not getting many votes and I think they are worth promoting). I hope no one goes ahead and promotes something of theirs for at least 5-6 hours during prime time and waste the PowerPoints I've invested. That would irritate me be inconsiderate and then I'll get all pouty and mad - you wouldn't like me when I get mad."

Ya, I don't know what the solution is, but I do see problems with the new mechanics. Thanks for bringing up the topic though Dag. I know everything is new and you guys worked very hard on it so some of us are reluctant to point out glaring oddities just yet. This is one I noticed right away.

Definitely, I feel like they look like paid ads. Definitely, they don't look more important than those in the listings. I don't feel like they are special so I don't feel the need to click on them - in fact, I keep forgetting what they are and skip over them most the time. It's become an intuitive decision to skip over the ads at the top of websites which is what these look like.

As has been mentioned, and I agree, these "featured" videos have been stripped of all identity that would engage me and encourage me to watch them (tags, description, how new/old it is, how many views it's had.) This makes it heavily reliable on the thumbnail and title, which when you think about it, should be enough, but I'm surprised to realise how much those other pieces play in whether I click on it or not. No description = no click.

It's like shopping at Wal-Mart, not priced = no sale.

This discussion doesn't mesh well with my whoring a vote or two on my 8-9 vote videos, not listening la la la

Non-charters only recharge 1 point at a time, it's rare to amass two. I am switching to quality as well-I I liked to peruse the dead pool, fix an embed, then use the point to promote a viddy that maybe had only one vote to be published.
....missing the beggar's canyon (is it hidden?)

Agreed. I automatically stopped using it as I've assumed it will have less promotional affect than before. Also the images aren't as prominent as they used to be.

So I can burn a power point and have it rendered useless 5 minutes later when 3 other videos get promoted? No thanks. As far as etiquette goes... I think you have too much faith and trust in the cliquies and badge whores. But... what's new?

@dag & @lucky760 - Remember, I'm a strongly opinionated webdeveloper, so take my criticism with a pinch of salt. There are tons of stuff that is really good with the site, but the things that don't work really makes me itch. So, please don't hate me

Just noticed this, which have been bothering me, but now that I understand the mechanism it doesn't bother me as much;
the font size of a comment increases based on the number of votes it has!
Looks a bit weird though, when all the comments have different font sizes.

Doens't make much of a difference to me personally. The reason why I rarely visit this site anymore is the lack of editorial content. Right now one of the prime spots (promoted videos) of this site is occupied by a video with 4 votes (desc in all caps btw, very nice).

I mean sure it's nice to give some individual the opportunity to promote a video of his/her choosing to the most valuable real estate of this website, but to what end? I feel theres really a lack of quality control here.

Sometimes I would look for a video to promote because honestly I don't like having a power point sitting in my queue waiting around for days for nothing feels like a waste. And if I could promote a video instead and wait for it to refresh I would have two videos to promote in a shorter amount of time than I would if I just left it until I found something amazing. If quality is where Im now forced to spend my point than thats where it will go.

So did anyone complain about having 10 vids promoted on the front page? It certainly never bothered me.

Is this a fix for a problem that only dag and lucky had?

I'd like to hear if others were bothered by 10 or so promotes. Anybody?

As for how effective promotes are.... there was a vid in "featured" mode for ELEVEN HOURS and still hadn't gotten 10 votes.

As for wanting us to police it ourselves -- we have to click into the vid to see how long it had been there. We have to decide if 2 hours or 3 hours or 4 hours is enough. If we promote a vid, we have to worry if it will fall off in 5 minutes if someone else isn't being attentive or if it is a high traffic time and 5 people promote in quick succession.

I just don't see that the promote as it is currently designed is effective or workable or anything other than anxiety producing (for us badge whores and cheapskates who want our power points to have a return on our "investment".)

I love you guys, dag and lucky. I love the look of the site now (except PLEASE use black for text and get rid of/tone down the crosshatch background to the right -- there just isn't enough contrast. The sizing up helped, thanks for that.) I suspect that some of the design elements are necessitated by having to service mobile devices and regular computers, but I don't know enough to know if that is true or not.

Overall, the design is clean and pretty. There are pangs as certain things have gone away and some fumblings as we learn new things.

But I haven't seen a single positive comment about the way promotes are now working. As near as I can tell, there was a single goal -- keep the number down -- which is fine. I think the Sifters would be better served if:
1. the time limit was brought back
2. the promote area was treated like a pqueue, and if three were already there, no more could be added.
3. the old Promote presentation be brought back, so they looked like regular vids instead of like ads. (I did find myself squinting at them, with the eye slide that someone else commented on.)

So I asked a question way up in this post -- did anyone have a problem with 10 promoted vids on the front page? Any sifter?

Thanks for all the good work, guys. Really.

I too dislike the new promote mechanic. I had no issue previously with the number of promoted videos that were there.

I've just in the last week or so allowed myself to 'discover' reddit, and now I'm spending time there that I used to spend here... and so I offer some comparisons:

Videosift Pros:

* Huge pro is the lack of duplicates. Repetitive content on reddit is really quite tiresome

* Tight community, we 'know' each other moreso than the huge mass that is Reddit


Videosift Cons:

* As of the update in particular, a loss of focus on comments. It used to be that the number of comments and link to them was large and below the text description of the video, now it's gone from there and only shown as a tiny icon under the thumbnail. I'm FAR less drawn to the comment sections here now, I just don't notice the link any more.

* The promote system used to be a great way to get an old video and bring it back to people's attention, and without fear of stuffing up other people's videos that were there. I used to wait if there were already heaps sitting in there, for a time when it was less crowded, and I think this worked well. Now that there are always three videos there there's no real idea of how 'busy' it is, and I'm not going to check how long any of them have been up there, that's 'work' to find out. Basically it's broken. A queue system where you're told that your video has not yet made it to the front page, but is queued to be shown in 'x' hours or minutes would be great. Then any video gets a minimum of time in the promote spot, but can potentially stay up there longer if no videos are in the queue. And yes, the way they're currently displayed is lacking compared to 'normal' videos.

The main reason I really come to videosift is for the discussions, and with them being pushed to the back now in this design, I am feeling less and less inclined to come by.

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

Good feedback, keep it coming - we can take it.

Well first off--now I see an answer to my question,

"Why the hell are they wasting top-of-the-page space?"

I don't see three promoted videos in a line; I see two videos and a third one below and to the left, leaving a big hole below and to the right.

I agree with @bareboards2, @eric3579, @ctrlaltbleach, @Sagemind, et al. And @spoco2's dissection is spot on.

I also have a problem with the crosshatching. I don't know the optical reasons, but the gray on gray crosshatch is like lasers in my eyeballs. Maybe color is part of it? I know the conspiracy tag is completely unreadable to me now.

I love this place and remember my fevered consternation when--in the past--the site was down for me. But I've had to go elsewhere recently just because of eyestrain.

I'm not having the problem with tiny comment boxes. Everything looks fine and is easy to read. Huh.


OH. I see. I had never even noticed the icon beneath the thumbnail, I just clicked through. Huh. That doesn't bother me -- I'm sure I will learn to "see" it.

And for the HTML impaired, I miss the cheats at the top of the comment box. I don't know how to just strike out the first line when I added the second.

I'll transfer 10 power points to the person who comes up with the better solution (that also isn't the old system)

I resemble that remark. I too miss the cheats and have no idea how to do them. I'm self taught ... no computer training ... just flyin' by the seat of my pants all these years [and they are purdy darn threadbare let me tell you]. There are sure to be those who hate it, but I like to type as I would speak. So sue me

I never minded having 10 promotes on display and I do feel cheated with just three. I am impressed with the comments others here have made regarding the more in-depth analysis of the Quality and Promote issues and have nothing more to add of any benefit.

Personally, I like the new [dark] colors and have no trouble viewing with the exception of my green PlayhousePals against a green comment box background [Sifty!]. I did have to change my colors around after the update as my fuchsia motif just wasn't suitable anymore.

I have no trouble with the access to comments and enjoy most of the new icons [once I got used to them]. I find them to be concise and unobtrusive. I do have some difficulty with the smallness of the channel designations however. They are difficult to make out.

Whatever happens, I'm glad to have found enjoyment here and want to thank you all for the opportunity, hospitality and, from a good many of you, encouragement and support. I hope I haven't stepped on many toes or offended too many sensibilities thus far ... that would be unfortunate, but ... what the hey? Live and let live, right? You're kind of stuck with me

FYI the current 3 promoted videos have as of now gained

7 votes in 17hrs DOCUMENTARY - OFFICIAL CALL OF DUTY BLACK OPS 2
9 votes in 14hrs FACEBOOK PRIVACY POLICY (FOR IDIOTS)
1 vote in 8hrs THE MONTANA HOUSE

sense they were promoted.
Something is most defiantly broken
Is it possible to switch back to the old way of doing promotes untill we come up with something better?

Ok then-How about a float-over link to a page specifically FOR recently promoted videos?
They don't have to all be plastered on the top of the front page-Simply place a prominently-visible link to promoted videos.

I have enjoyed perusing promoted viddies first when coming to the main page, and also recycling a viddy there to jack the votes up or in order to keep it in everyone's face longer-

Thanks for all the sincere thoughts and for helping to assure the Sift is as featurific as it oughta be.

As it's clear the new promote system is definitely unwanted by the vast majority of Sift meatbags and this is a meritocracy after all, it's looking likely we'll end up changing it.

However, I am vehemently against the old style system that pushes all our hot, new content way down below the fold.

That said, here's a proposal:

What if we retain a single promoted video slot at the top of the page (displayed like a normal video in the listing, but labeled as being promoted), that randomly rotates among all the currently promoted videos, 1 video at a time, but evenly, so they all get an equal amount of display time as whatever else is currently promoted?

And we could have a button in this panel that when clicked will load a different promoted video into this slot, which could be used by folks who'd like to scan through to see what else is promoted.

Would this be a good solution? Up-vote this comment for YES and down-vote this comment for NO.

Voting begins in 30 seconds.

P.S. Of course, if you have any other ideas, please share them with the rest of the class.

[Amendment]

The promoted video will be displayed expanded, so the video embed instead of the small thumbnail image will be open by default.

@eric3579, come see Lucky's idea. I find it rather intriguing....

For TOO LONG - DID NOT READ people, you need to cast your vote on Luckys above comment

@lucky760 proposal sounds like it would be better then what we have now but still not as good as what we had before. Id rather have my videos sitting anywhere on the front page rather then in the proposed promoted section. I also still think * quality will be a far better choice for videos and will end up clogging the front page, and for much longer then promotes ever did. So new content still gets pushed down but for a far longer time. Of course it's just my opinion.

What about doing it the old way with the rule that each sifter can only promote one video at a time. Just a thought.

@lucky760 I think that would be better but only if it were to display at least three videos at a time like it is already but use your random video idea and also the arrow scroll and maybe if its plausible have a auto scroll cycle through the next ones down after a bit of time has lapsed. Of course some aesthetic changes should be made so that they stick out more like others have suggested.

Just thinking out loud...

If it needs more prominence than regular listing videos, maybe the one displayed promoted video could start out with the video embed expanded... Hmm...

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

That's an intriguing idea. It would definitely give it the punch, and then, combined with your previous idea of a button to allow rotation to the nex promoted post - could be a winner.

What would you think about adding a promoted videos category to the drop down Videos Menu?

This would accommodate and showcase any number of promoted videos and be as easily accessed as any of the extant category choices.

^ what chicco said!!

IF you were to go for a one slot promoted video, make it a rotating content slider. http://bxslider.com/ something like that.
That way the users who like promoted videos can scroll through all of them.
You could probably also make it slide automatically, using setInterval. At least until the user decides to navigate in it.

If lucky goes with this idea, which I think is fine (please please, no drop down menu where you have to choose to go to the promoted vids, that would be a killer).... since there would be a rotation, could the promote time be much longer?

Since they won't be clogging up the front page.... and they won't be on the front page at any given moment.... having a longer promote time would be good, yeah?

And doublepromote has meaning again?

My suggestion would be to ditch the three thumbnail layout that is currently there, and display a standard video layout (thumb, title, desc etc), but one that stands out more. Perhaps the thin white border around the thumbs could encapsulate the title and desc too? This would display the most recent promoted item. below this it could display a row of mini thumbs for other currently promoted vids. clicking one would replace the shown big vid above.... Perhaps they could cycle automatically if the user hasn't interacted with the promoted video box yet?

@lucky760 you've been talking about above the fold etc, but if you make the promoted video expanded that will take up the entire page. That's way to big.
Why are you stuck on changing it completely? I'm pretty sure people want it more like it used to be. At least I do.

@lucky760 said: "The promoted video will be displayed expanded, so the video embed instead of the small thumbnail image will be open by default."

There's a very big difference between a single expanded video which will take up ~700px and a listing of 10 videos which will eat up 2000px or even more. (And I didn't say we'd be putting anything above the fold, just that we shouldn't push all the content so much farther down.)

It's not just about size, but how you use it (the "motion of the ocean," so to speak). One expanded video is much less of a hindrance than 10-15 collapsed videos.

For the former, visitors to the front page will see 1 video and can quickly watch it or skip it then scroll past to see the front page listing content. For the latter, there can be so many videos promoted that a visitor will never get past them to reach the actual front page listing.

Q: "Why are you stuck on changing it completely?"

A: Everyone who wants it the old way is mainly only concerned with how their own personal promotes are advertised, however we (@dag and myself) have to consider the bigger picture.

I disagree. You need to know how users interact with your site. And right now I don't think you take half of the scenarios into account.

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

We try and take scenarios into account. That's why we're going through this process. How many sites do you know that bring its members in so closely to the development process? Why don't you go tell Reddit that you don't like the shape of their vote buttons and see how far that gets you.

Well, excuse me, but I am offended that my criticism of the promote system is being written off as purely self-interest. I stopped promoting because I didn't want to mess with other Sifters' promotes -- how is that being selfish about my own presentation?

I understand that lucky and dag have a duty to the site as a whole. Which is why I asked the question -- how many complaints were generated about the old system? That was a real question. Those of us on the site a lot can get stuck in our own bubble. If there have been complaints about how the site was working, then we all need to know about them. Something put a burr under dag and lucky's saddle about the way promotes used to work -- but I just don't see it and they aren't helping me to understand.

And -- for whatever was prompting this overhaul of the promote system, lucky's new solution is fine. Meets their interest of minimizing the number of promotes on the front page -- lets Sifters promote without worrying about messing with other Sifters promotes -- promoted videos no longer look like ads and they will have full data without having to click through.

I am beginning to wonder if this whole promote controversy is related to mass number of Sifters finally figuring out that they can work cooperatively to get their vids promoted -- to promote your own costs two power points. If you work cooperatively with someone else, you each get a promoted vid for the cost of one power point. And hence the number of promoted vids went up.

I don't see that as a problem in and of itself. I think that makes for a stronger community, where we work together so all can succeed. It encourages conversation between Sifters, which is all to the good of the community.

I really appreciate dag and lucky and all that they put into this site. I appreciate that my opinion is asked. I am not above begging for my point of view. Bottom line, though, it is dag and lucky's deal and I suspect that they are privy to issues and complaints that we know nothing about.

Thanks, our fearless leaders. I appreciate the opportunity to offer my two cents. And I appreciate that you guys clearly are taking EVERYONE'S two cents into account.

What about doing a "Featured" rotator like most sites use. Go to the Steam store and look at how they promote multiple games at once.

What I specifically like about the Steam Featured rotator is that it gives each item a few moments of full-sized focus. Videosift's Promoted items has always bothered me for that reason. Promoted video's never really stood out from regular ones, other than being first in a list.

@dag I commend you for letting the users have so much influence over the site, but I don't agree that this was a very inclusive development process. A selected few was allowed to test the V5 beta, and that was with 3-4 months old data, making the use of the site practically meaningless, as far as I understand. Of course you are going to get an overwhelming amount of feedback from the excluded users, since parts of the website have gotten less functional.

But a little more on topic, I'm disagreeing with the reasons you and @lucky760 are changing the promote system. The "bigger picture" seems to be that you and @lucky760 have some issue with it. Nobody else seemed to complain. If you have any good reasons for changing it, please enlighten me, but so far I haven't heard any.

Also, I don't care how reddit looks. I don't chat on reddit. I don't know anybody on reddit. I don't have anything invested on reddit. And I haven't put any money into reddit.
I care about the sift. I've been here 6 years. I hope I'll stick around another 6. That is why I'm voicing my opinions, concerns and possible solutions.

I enjoyed the earlier edition of promote. Thats all I have to say about that.

And now off to play tabletop dungeons and dragons 3.5

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

I would say that we have been as inclusive in the development process as possible. We had several rounds of feature request discussions, we let testers in as early as possible and we implemented *many* features directly from ideas thought up by Sifters. The maximum power points by year limitation, for example.

I don't know how we could have been more inclusive. At some point Lucky and I have to make decisions and implement.

No, we did not implement everything that everyone asked for - a camel is a horse designed by a committee. We were going for horse - not camel.

we do have a couple of guiding principles though that we use for making changes:

1. Changes should promote altruistic social behaviour and limit self-interest (that's been with us since the beginning)
2. Changes should increase the usefulness of the site

I'm not saying we succeeded on those points - but that's what we're always going for.

I have opinions and feedback, but I'm to darn tired to give them right now. I'll be back with diagrams and other festivities.

I think you people just fear change and winge about how you cant slut your videos anymore.

On a more important topic though, I just promoted a video, one video on the left (newest) was ten minutes before my most recent promote) one in the middle is an hour old and mine god dammit just showed up in the FAR right side. So if that gets booted off first I am phoning the FCC !~ ! and formally complaining.

I like slutting my videos... especially the ones about chaste women.

Like the rotating idea....
I picture a strip of thumbnails n titles at the top or perhaps a 3-slot-random promoted video slot kinna like the old videos in someone's pqueue were displayed-I liked being able to rotate my 3 viddies solitaire-styley-

The way I throw promotes around as fast I get points, I use the pqued vids with 8-9 votes as my fodder for promotes.....there's a TON OF VIDEOS with 8 and nine votes that got missed people!!??

The rotatory "wheel" as a feature might be cool...you could spin it with your mouse and pick a promoted video...

no matter how it turns out, pimping votes with votes is the way this site rolls!

http://imgur.com/a/EmhRt
So, the first part is just me moving around a few things to make more room, because I think the top of the site is wasting lots of space.

I think the Promoted videos loks sort of like ads, but the sift of the week is exactly like an ad to me - look at picture 2 where it has an ad right above it.

I would like to see the whole right side bar only use small things, while the left main page can show big things.

When something is promoted to the front page like bareboards2's post, I would want that above the promoted videos, as it seems to break the flow of reading - and * frontpage should be more powerful than * promote.

There's something off about the promoted videos. They obviously try to squish in the title in small font so it can be shown, but at the same time it feels weird I think. Compare a promoted thumbnail with a regular one:
http://i.imgur.com/GFnBp.jpg
The bottom bar on the regular one actually presses in vital information about comments, which is the centerpoint of the sift, together with the videos themselves. This should not be overlooked - the promote needs something like that.

The "Featured" banner is unnecessary - "show, don't tell". We know it's featured, because the damn thing is right in our faces!

I also can't see who posted the video, which is part of my "1 second evaluation" of whether or not I should give the video a chance. There are people I know have tastes that correspond to mine, so this will often give a video that I've already "passed" a second chance at my precious vote/view.

Here's a quick mock-up of a different, but similar way of doing it:
http://i.imgur.com/Hqets.jpg

As for the mechanical way of having only three at the top at any point, I think it gives the wrong incentives.

They will only rotate out when someone "knocks another one down", so there's inherent trolling in that.

There's uncertainty in what you get for your precious powerpoint, uncertainty ALWAYS lead to inaction - so people are scared off and won't use them at all.

@dag mentioned the guiding principles:

"1. Changes should promote altruistic social behavior and limit self-interest (that's been with us since the beginning)
2. Changes should increase the usefulness of the site"

If you can align both points in the first, that's much better. People are inherently self interested first and altruistic after that. Just "consuming" videos is a self-interested thing as well, so we have to make it as easy for someone to absorb the content as possible. For the posters, we also must give the fitting incentives for providing value to the site, but the two types of visitors and two very different animals (although almost all posters are also viewers).

I feel the promote system limits the usefulness of the site for the posters. I don't really want to promote anything, because it'll just be gone again as soon as anyone else gets the idea of posting. I also have to consider whether or not I want the currently promoted video to stick around a little longer before posting - maybe the promoted videos are something I don't like, so me and my posse of late night sifters keep promoting them away from the promote reel with our videos of Maru, the wonder-cat, jumping into things.

I hope my ramblings and child-like drawings make sense.

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

Great feedback. Thank you. The biggest point I've taken on board is that anything rectangular and called out in some way , these days is seen by the human eye as an ad. It sucks but I think you are right - and we need to adjust. We'll be absorbing this and making some changes.

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Change is coming. *unsticky

Unstickying this post from the top of Sift Talk - unsticky requested by dag.