Can we *sticky this for a few days?

Stickying this post at the top of Sift Talk - sticky requested by raven.

One of my first posts to VS was Baghdad Raid which showed the armored column advance into Baghdad. It was blogged at the time for being a war video, it eventually passed Sifters consent into the fold because it highlighted a side of the war the media avoids at all costs.

The Iraq war and the GWOT as a whole has been sanitized and detached from the reality of events on the ground, most of the content that passes the sift with regards to the war would never be shown on News channels.

I believe the Sift can act as a venue for staying informed about the actual issues faced by the troops on the ground, allowing us as individuals to understand the situation better then what the press deems worthy for us to know.

so i'll say it again, the only way to stop the fuzzy discussion is to make a clear unambiguous rule. "snuff" and "documentary context" seems to be debatable. Death is always clear cut. So, tag anything containing death with *death, and that's that.

this means that all twin towers vids would be *death.
*death could be turned on or off depending on user's preference.

another simple solution brought to you by MINK Inc

I would totally be for that Mink, however, I think you will find that there is a large segment of this community that will quickly cite 'slippery slope' for any such suggestion.

Why, thank you Raven. This sure is well-needed.

My vote is to have things like the aforementioned video be permissible. I move that a video is permissible so long as there are no dead bodies shown. But then you need to draw the line on that as well, because then you would have a debate on things like this video of an insurgent blowing himself up. No, there is no dead body or flying pink matter, but the video exists to be viewed for one reason: See an insurgent get blowed into Kibbles & Bits.
My argument is this:
If it exists for viewing of a guy/people getting killed, then it is *snuff.
However, if you can take something else from it, like I did from the other one, then it's OK. What did I get from that other than seeing upwards of 16 troops getting killed?

1) It shows the absolute terror that is caused by a simple ten mile drive to get some freaking mail. Every minute I was outside the wire going somewhere I feared for my life. Most Americans, nay, most people in the world don't know what it's like to be in constant fear for your life, no matter where you are, no matter the time of day.

2) When the news says "A roadside explosion/IED killed ___ troops today" they just mention it in passing. When I first saw that video, my heart dropped into the pit of my stomach. It reminded me that my comrades are still over there while I'm sitting all comfy on my chair in the civilian world discussing them. When people (Americans) see this video, I think it drives a few points home.

To the Dems : STFU about spending money on armor. They obviously need it. To the Reps: Hurry the fuck up and get my brothers out of that mess. Establish a specific goal. A tangible one. Accomplish it and get the fuck out.

raven... what slippery slope?
either you want to expand the possibilities or you don't. you can't say "this kind of extremity is ok but other kinds are too extreme" or this debate will just go on forever.

if something was totally disgusting couldn't it still be blogged and discussed?

but let's not have 1000 debates about whether sniper video X is more "valuable" than sniper video Y.

Why is death taboo? Because of voyeurism. Because the predictable nature of humans is such, that you will always have the lowest common denom. crowd, who likes the spectacle of visceral content, for the sake of that alone-

VS want to be seen as a cut above the jack-ass channels, like liveleak, so we simply disallow some stuff, to avoid confrontation altogether. DANGER

The votes have it-I vote up some vids, not because of the vids, but on merit of the dialog it ignites alone. I also post vids for the same reason.

We are adult enough to see the difference, and can vote accordingly. Which is why Sogoddamn Insane, and his swingin' ass, is not here....

Exercise yer down vote powers, and show the users of this site, what makes for good copy-then show them with yer comments-

and you "P's" that lurk, comment, and don't post???? I just don't understand yas....you gotta shake that thang, main.....Show Out!

Get rid of the word snuff, too. As eric stated in the comments on the disarded vid that the fuss is about here, There is no snuff on video sites.

@MINK, All I was pointing out is that your *death tag would require a complete rewriting of the guidelines, which, probably, most people are not ready for.

I mean, yes, your suggestion is nice and it would simplify things in the end, but today I would just like to start with this one corner of it because I strongly feel that increasing the availability of information regarding this current war is of the utmost importance, and warrants a bending of the guidelines. If you want to start up a campaign to have them completely rewritten, then by all means, go for it, I'll get your back, but today, please, can we keep focused on this one issue?

You're totally right *quality

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

Choggie is hitting the right tone here for me, it's all about adults and choice. Obviously we have no video here that fits the snuff definition, and for a good reason, we are adults that can police ourselves. The video I sifted, had NO, and I repeat NO downvotes. That speaks volumes, as far as I am concerned. Do we honestly think that the sift will turn into some "Faces of Death" site because we sift non-graphic war footage that has casualties?

oh hey, youdiejoe, that was me that voted up yer comment about that guy choggie...I tend not to agree with him, most of the time....

ok raven for this specific amendment i say aye
if it's filmed in a warzone anywhere at any time i think it is automatically of documentary merit, even if (especially if?) it is gratuitous. I think downvotes aren't powerful enough to cancel out the voyeurism upvotes, but whatever, it's better than deleting all vids of war.
but i don't like seeing any death whatsoever without warning.

What did it for me for the video in question was the possibility that it was filmed by a terrorist. I've thought some more on that and I don't think that of itself that should be a deciding factor. But I do believe if you are posting video that involves death you need to be responsible enough to know the source of the video. And if the video is not a documentary or narrated news report, then you need to be able to report on the event in the description. Otherwise it would seem you are just posting for the wow-factor. If you are earnest that people need to be able to see what is going on in a war zone then you need to actually describe what, when, where, why and how so that people are really being informed and not just watching to be amazed or entertained.

Another thought is that if you are just trying to carve out a corner for war reporting then maybe we need a war channel. We have military but that is much broader. This fits in better than the death flag, because it is easily do-able to add another channel and we have the ability to turn off channels per user.

I like where you are going Raven but I was wondering if we could get some clarification on what exactly the Iraq/Afghanistan waiver on videos would entail. I for one think of two videos that come to mind that I would call into question if we said "go ahead and post any war footage from Iraq."

The Blackwater trophy videos and related content of those who are screaming "hell yea" when the video is taken of an insurgent having his leg shot off. Some of these are ridiculous and I don't see any value in them whatsoever. All I'm trying to say is that before we open the Iraq floodgate let's set SOME kind of boundary. I still think the "videos shot for entertainment" clause should apply to Iraq.

I agree Twiddles, on both counts, but unfortunately, it is difficult to get everyone to follow some kind of format when posting (anyone else remember JoeDirt's valiant attempt to get a title format going in his election08 channel?)... getting them to seek out whos, whats, wheres, and whys might be too much to as for, however, I would be all for encouraging this.

A War on Terror Channel might also be something to consider... oftentimes I've found myself tempted to give up the HorrorShow in favor of starting something like this up... maybe its time I consider passing on the Vampira mantel to someone else.

I almost wish I could agree with you Snipe, but unfortunately, these 'trophy' videos are a serious part of the corpus of information that is coming out of Iraq, and choosing to ban them only eliminates them from the dialogue. If that stance was taken and these videos censored, then it would just be easier to believe government statements that Blackwater is a professional operation that is there for the good of the Iraqi people and the security of the country or whatever other bullshit they are currently spinning. Yes, those videos are violent, sometimes gruesome, and oftentimes shot by individuals with questionable moral foundations. But choosing to overlook them leaves all of that out of the dialogue of discussion.

As far as what is too much or what is in bad taste, well I would like to think that we members of this community will exercise that judgment via our downvotes and the discussions that are spawned. Really, I don't see that a huge floodgate is going to open with an amendment to the guidelines being passed, every LiveLeak Iraq vid is not going to suddenly get published, downvotes or nonvotes will weed out the chaff, and in the case of truly disgusting stuff (like limbs flying off), there is still always the *blog command.

Yay for Raven. I think that last one currently sums the whole thing up.

You make a good point Raven. I don't think any of what Blackwater does should be filtered out. I do however take the stance of either side posting videos of limbs and other gruesome gore that has no meaning behind it should be and will be blogged. I think we can both agree on that.

Rethinking the downvote options and *blogs does ease my fear of the floodgate of liveleak coming onto the sift. I don't want to censor the war in Iraq as I think your videos from the front playlist is great and necessary to cut through the political bullshit. I wanted to exercise the need for a bit of restraint and hopefully that will come with the communities voice in the form of downvotes.

As you said previously a War on Terror channel, or even overall War channel would be nice, I think if noone steps up to this I think the military channel can cover most of what is going on.

I think I am going to step up to this actually, if the admins agree that one is warranted, I would like to take charge of any War in Iraq/War on Terror Channel, its kind of been a longstanding project of mine anyway, and I've actually been thinking about for the last six months or so... somehow, I think it would be a better use of my time on the Sift than cataloging snippets from horror flicks, and while I've enjoyed playing the part of Vampira, its probably time I moved on to something a tad more meaningful.

Well you played the Vampira role very well. However may I suggest you go the area of War on Terror rather than limiting it to Iraq, I would like to see more about the war in Afghanistan as well.

I've sifted quite abit of material that falls into this category, and most of y'all know that I think it's important that we catalog these War on Terror videos. Very glad to see that Raven wants to do a channel on this.

Instead of *death, what about a *graphic tag? I've used that tag quite a bit for my protest song submissions and it seems to fit...

Along the lines of the original thought brought up here by Raven, defining snuff... Let the votes decide. If we're worried that too much objectionable content still gets published well we have the blog option where we can decide.

If we feel the older members here should have more say then change the vote options on a blogged video. What I mean is this:

If a video is blogged for whatever reason, a new vote box is offered to goldies only. Then we would vote whether the sift appropriately represents our guidelines? In a sense the sift would have to re-publish by goldies only in order to go back.

Any thoughts?

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

OK, we can consider a war channel for sure. But do we want any verbage in the guidelines about videos depicting death? - Or are we saying, leave it up to the community to decide what is in poor taste.

I think the war channel/*graphic tag is the way to go. The reason VS kicks so much ass is because of it's awesome community. I think we should let them decide.

*graphic is perfect, I second the vote!

Also 3 cheers for Raven on picking up the gauntlet!

Swampgirl's idea for a goldie vote is also a very good check to balance the community.

@snipe, the channel would definitely include Afghanistan... War on Terror is probably the best title, as much as that phrase makes me want to gag sometimes, it is the best description, and will then be all encompassing and allow for the addition of future fronts in the war, should our wise and all knowing administration decide to engage itself in other countries (that was sarcasm there, but in reality, an all too real and very sad possibility).

And what Swampgirl said is a good suggestion, having a way for members to vote one way or the other on a debatable issue, like whether a vid is snuff or porn, would be a great feature, rather than just relying on debate, because often, what I've noticed happens is that the squeekiest, and most persistent wheels, even if there are less of them, often get their way. I initially tried find some kind of poll to set up for this debate, but lacked the abilities to tie it in with the Sift, and thereby make sure that each member got only one vote. I would also be in favor of limiting this power to goldies.

Frankly I agree with raven's standpoint, current events and realism can only strengthen the sift's goals to be an alternative media outlet. When I think of snuff (and this may go against the VS guideline definition) I think of the loss of human life with a perverse presentation, vids from the front are not meant to support perversion but to support awareness. The best way to make this argument simple is to find a way to keep vids from the front that some may find offensive away from those that are easily offended, i.e. the much suggested tags of *graphic or *war. With such tags in place, if you think it will bother you...just don't watch.

SG has got a very good point.

This can hardly be left only to the votes of the community, because people who can upvote are so more than people who can downvote.

So either we have a separate vote for this sort of things, or we need to add more weight to the downvotes.

Leave it to the ladies, to come up with a solution! Hooray for the War channel!!

(hmmm....who is gonna take the horrorshow? I predict, the demise of fake horror, and the birth of the real.)

For debate votes you still have a problem of when to cut off the votes. Do you say that 10 up votes sends it back to the queue? And if so, what happens if 4 or 5 or 6 people who would have objected come along later. Do you re-blog and vote again?

I have given this some thought and I am wholeheartedly in agreement with the case that Raven has made.

Is is exactly *because* these videos are so horrifying that they should NOT be dis-allowed. There is a human value in showing the true nature of war that far outweighs any upset on the part of the individual viewing the clip.

I agree that a *graphic tag would be needed.

I am completely in favour of allowing Raven to head up a 'War on Terror' channel, I'm totally satisfied by his comments and the way he comes across that he has something to say and has a point to be made, and will approach the subject in a mature and thoughtful manner.

This, friends, is the golden age of the internet, right here, right now. I can forsee a time in years to come when people will not be able to have the same open and honest discourse and free publishing of media that we take for granted here every day on the sift.

Regardless of whether we all agree with each other on the issues and topics that we all discuss and argue about on videosift, we surely must all agree how important it is to have that freedom of speech and expression in the first place.

The War on Terror is the most important thing in all of our lives right now, regardless of your personal feelings on its necessity. It is only right that our online communities reflect that, and more importantly reflect how we feel.

Do it, while we still can.

Well said Irishman.






(btw, Raven is a woman )

What happens next? Whom do we need to engage in this discussion to make these great ideas a reality?

DAAAAAG!!! LUUUUCKYYY!!!!
Can you come here please?

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

I've tried to follow the consensus on the thread. So to summarize - remove the guideline on "snuff"- and do we want to have some other verbage there - to indicate that we still don't want graphic death scenes? I'm thinking hostage dismemberment etc. Someone give us a good block of text for what should go in place of the snuff section.

For the War channel - raven, you just need to find an admin for the Horror channel, transfer ownership to them and create the new channel.

Oh, and a *graphic invocation - right?

I think that's the general consensus, yeah. Take out the word "snuff" but write in there we don't want to actually see any people die. Of all the videos that have caused a massive discussion, I don't recall any that actually showed anything. But no, we don't want to see blood squirting out of a freshly-chopped neck.

I like what is says so far: "Note: The presence of human fatality is acceptable and not considered "snuff" if presented as a limited portion of a lengthy educational, informative news report or documentary. Our definition of "snuff" does include but is not exclusive to any short clip in which a human fatality occurs whether or not any victims are actually visible on camera."

Maybe "We do not want any videos that graphically display a person being killed or dismembered." can go somewhere in there?

I think that *graphic can go right along with NSFW as far as filters are concerned.
I wish I had a diamond. I'd love to manage the war channel.

I agree with the idea of having a *graphic tag, after that let the votes decide.

With a couple of exceptions, it seems like everyone has missed the point of not allowing 'snuff' on VS. It's not because it will offend any particular person, but because it will attract rubberneckers like flies to shit. The rubberneckers then become part of the community and will post vids that continually push the envelope, attracting more flies, etc. That's my understanding of it anyway.

Leaving it to voting on these kinds of vids is crazy. There is already a distinct etiquette surrounding downvotes, particularly for posts still in the queue, which is that downvotes are generally used only for those posts which are most objectionable. Those kinds of posts are already taken care of rather quickly and summarily, and it's not what is at issue here. It is those posts which are borderline that we're discussing, and it is clear to me that upvotes will always win out. Introducing a new voting guideline for such posts is all well and good, except that community habits don't change that easily.

Asking Lucky to code up a complex system of gold only voting for these vids implies that the VS community in general should be more focused on these vids than any other, which I find highly objectionable. This would entail a significant amount of time, at the cost of other potential fixes and features which provide a benefit to the entire site.

Is anyone engaged in this discussion under any illusions about the horrific costs of war? Do you really need to be reminded that people are dying every day by watching it happen? I submit that the motivation to include such posts here is to bring attention to that horror to those who otherwise wouldn't see it. But I think this is kind of a case of preaching to the choir. The folks you want to reach are already aware of that horror, and those who will stick their heads in the sand aren't going to lift them out because of us (a certain discrete fungus comes to mind).

I like the idea of a War of Imperialism channel in the abstract, but I don't think it would solve this problem, especially given the way the channel filter works right now. In other words, there are loads of non-violent videos which would be included in that channel which would be 'inadvertently' filtered.

Raven, I know your heart is in the right place on this, but restricting this discussion to Iraq and Afghanistan is, pardon me, narrow-minded. Are the lives of those affected by combat in Iraq and Afghanistan any more important than those of the Sudanese, Burmese, Zimbabweans, Columbians, etc.? This discussion needs to consider the wider context of armed conflict around the world. I understand that there are vastly greater numbers of videos coming out of those two countries right now, but it's absurd to have this discussion for each and every situation.

I actually have a lot more to say on this topic, but I wanted to get this out there before the opinions of roughly a dozen people (which I respect greatly) are taken as a consensus for the community. This post is less than 10 hours old, and already folks are leaning towards considering it decided.

"There is already a distinct etiquette surrounding downvotes, particularly for posts still in the queue, which is that downvotes are generally used only for those posts which are most objectionable."

What planet are you on? Downvotes are sometimes random anomaly, personal hang-up refraction mechanism, or spiteful and witty gestures of faith?!

I don't think that people are looking to filter out a channel in it' entirety, but only those videos with a *graphic tag.

Take in to account Johnny, things get tried here, but not necessarily carved in stone. A little open mindedness is a good idea here.

I don't think Raven's trying to change the world one sift at time, it's about the content that the community finds interest in. The comment thread brims with discussion on the war daily. Raven's actually cornering an area of extreme interest.

And for the record, yeah... it does take people being reminded visually about what's happening people over there.

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

For the *graphic thing - if we are talking about creating a filter just like for * NSFW. I think it over complicates. We would have two types of separate filters for objectionable content.

choggie - yes, there are definitely some folks whose down votes are, um, seemingly arbitrary, but I think in general folks tend to reserve down votes for the truly objectionable. Just look through the published vids and start counting up the dv's for what could only charitably be called garbage.

sg - I'm trying to be open-minded about it. I thought the discussion needed an alternative point of view. But I disagree about things not getting carved in stone to an extent. Certainly, things like this don't become rules, but community culture is something that is very hard to change once developed. It is also something that follows momentum and trend, that is, as more violent vids get published, even more will begin to be queued. As to the current focus on the war in Iraq, well, that's my point. That focus will shift over time, and I don't see the point in having this discussion every time it does.

it does take people being reminded visually

Speak for yourself. I know that I don't. Gunrock - do you? Are those images not burned into your memory? My apologies if that remark is insensitive. Perhaps it is just my own personal familiarity with death that gives me this perspective, but I don't think it is. I believe most of the folks here are instantly reminded of the carnage when even a non-violent post discussing the war is watched.

@jonny
I see your point of the possibility of war "porn" as some have called it, but thats where the community kicks in and kicks that crap out. There are so many young people that take this for granted, they are viewing content here. If sifter here as it in her/his heart to bring thoughtful coverage to view here... more power to them. Maybe some of the folks taking a break from American Idol or Xbox that come here will be a little educated beyond the lame network coverage.

Good for Raven and Co. that's ready to bring that to them.

NSFW has a very direct content that everyone is very familiar with, it filters: nudity, profanity, sexuality

I think that *graphic would allow a subset for the NSFW filter

I think that we should have both *NSFW and *graphic. To me, that means that people that want to view regular NSFW videos can do so, while avoiding those that have the *graphic tag.

Jonny, no that wasn't insensitive, and I see your point. But I think that it's different with me. I was there, and witnessed this stuff first hand. I will always remember that.
But for other people - the ones that have become complacent - it is a lot easier for them to push those types of things out of their minds. It has no earned place for them.

I still move for a *graphic tag and a war channel. Filter them both out by default, so the people that don't want to see them don't ever have to worry about it.

A few things quickly before I go to bed and pass out:

@dag: I didn't realize that the creation of a channel was still so easy, what with the switch to 3.0 and all and 'collectives' having become 'channels', I wasn't sure I could just go and make a new one. Anyway, I will certainly do that which you outlined as soon as I find a new owner for the HorrorShow. Before I open it up to the public, however, I want to wait and see if Silvercord would like to take it over... he has really been a co-conspirator in many HorroShow hijinks and I would like it to go to him first if he is willing. If he decides otherwise though, I will open it up for takers... its a hard thing to part with, but I've given it my all and I think I am ready to move on.

Also @dag: I will address the issue of verbiage tommorrow, am faaaar too tired to do so at the moment, had a busy busy social night tonight, I needs my sleep.

@johnny, I will address your issues in the morning as well... but quickly... I think maybe you misunderstand swampgirl's voting scheme. The special voting would only be for the videos that get blogged, and really, I think those will be few and far between, only the ones that might potentially be too graphic. You see, most of the Iraq/Afghanistan videos that get discarded right now are done so because there are off camera, or implied deaths. Under the revised guidelines, these will not be an issue and thus will not even get blogged. Those that do get blogged will only be because there is a potentially truly gory moment on screen... and frankly, of all the vids that I have seen sifted (discarded or not), there were only ever a few of those that would fall into this category. Really, the majority of the stuff out there falls far short of that which everyone actually fears: some sort of Faces of Death carnival. It's not going to be like that, you see, I don't want to see truly disgusting vids either, terrorists beheading journalists is not suddenly going to become mainstream on this site.

All your other concerns will be addressed in 9-10 hours, the Raven requires some rack time now. Buenos noches.

"I feel that the footage shot by our men and women on the ground contains just as much historical merit and should be included on this site."

I second that.

One of the reasons this war has gone on for so long is because people aren't seeing what's really happening over there. They won't see it on television, but luckily, we still have the internet to help spread the truth.

@johnny
Who's that??? Oh that guy that just got banned. (punks better stop trampling on my namespace)

I will address your issues in the morning as well
take your time - I'd like this to continue until at least another dozen or so have weighed in. (Where the hell are GH, eric, lucky, joedirt, krupo, fletch, etc., etc.?)

One of the reasons this war has gone on for so long is because people aren't seeing what's really happening over there.

I'm sorry rougy, but that is a fallacy. Look at Vietnam for proof otherwise. The country was seeing it, was outraged, and it took another 7 or 8 years after those images started getting broadcast before we finally got out. The majority of the country is outraged about this, handing the republicans a resounding defeat in the mid-term elections. And what happened? Yosemite Sam sent in more troops. I think we're on the same side of the issue in general, I just disagree that public outrage has much effect on this looney in office. Something like 70% of the country wants us to at least start withdrawing troops.

Dag - good luck on writing that FAQ entry. I think it will come down to something like Stewart's comment on pornography in 60's - "I can't define pornography, but I know it when I see it." And this is one of my primary concerns. What one person considers an important historical document, is another person's snuff (Exhibit A: the Zapruder film).

I'm also worried that it will begin to attract folks into this community who are interested in little more than watching these types of vids for the shock value, leaving drive-by style comments, thus contributing nothing and possibly detracting from the strength of this community.

I just wanted to raise this point with you Jonny, the war is covered in drastically different ways between American and European media. This was especially prevalent during the start of the war, 'Shock And Awe' on CNN was basically the Al Jazeera feed, they allowed the American people to see US warplanes decimate Baghdad but didn't follow it up with Al Jazeera's coverage of numerous civilians killed as part of 'collateral' damage.

The media as a whole rallied around the Bush administration, even publications such as the Washington Post, New York Times and many others justified the invasion of Iraq initially. Even with world protests, dissent from major European powers like France and Germany.

Embedded reporters were with the US forces offered a slanted view of the war, because the other side was never given a voice, and am not talking about insurgents or anything like that but the civilian population who ultimately bares the brunt of the casualities in the war. Criticism of any sort was avoided at all costs because somehow that would mean undermining the mission or the troops, not even thinking about how such a preception would be taken by the rest of the world.

Was it swelled patriotism, revenge reportage or an inablilty to critique a war seemingly everyone supported - I don't know but it was very clear for me to see just by switching between Fox, CNN, EuroNews, BBC and Al Jazeera.

The US Military believed that it lost the war in Vietnam not in Vietnam but in the way the war was presented to the American people back home. The same situation is being replayed now in Iraq, only this time the media was fully with the US military. Only now the news does not show combat, does not show US troop losses but mentions them in passing, does not show civilian costs of the war and most of all doesn't ever mention the vets coming back from the war injured and or disabled.

Ultimately my arguement is that I believe VS as I stated can be a venue for informed views with regards to current affairs in the world. The most important right now being the war on terror, the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and many others that take place around the world.

We in less then 2 years have seen the rise of YouTube and citizen journalism as a whole, videos of the political repression in Burma flooded the internet almost as soon as the event occured, would that have happened before? Videosift is one of the few sites that actually has a politics section, a topic that is usually avoided like plague by other video hosts. I believe the userbase in the site as a whole is more then capable of policing itself, especially with long term users.

Likewise I do not believe we should avoid addressing important issues like the war. Everytime I think about this issue I recall this:

"I think the human race needs to think about killing. How much evil must we do in order to do good. "
- Robert McNamara

With regards to rubberneckers and drivebys, there is already a website far more catered to their interests called LiveLeak, I believe that VS as a community would provide the need framing and context not to create sensationalism for the posts that could arise, drive bys here don't last long at all. The reason people keep coming back is because the core userbase is exactly the opposite of the YouTube fanbase.

I do agree though that we shouldn't rush to finalize the issue.

The War on Terror is the most important thing in all of our lives right now, regardless of your personal feelings on its necessity.

Has this subject been discussed enough? Let's go ahead and make the decision- "yea" to the vids in ? has the majority, all your fears, cast them aside, and let those who will whine or protest, do so-This decision is not going to cause some inordinate amount of these type posts to flood the queue, and we can deal with all of them, one at a time anyhow-Bottom line is merit w/relation to the issues of the day, and the reality of a war, is all something you, de-sensitized to violence, yet overly-sensitive, types, raised on television murders, explosions, fires, rape, child abuse and piss-poor comedy......think ya'll can handle it??

Now lets move onto another subject: The spamming of VS, by its users, with pathetic Comedy Central vids-

It's important to address Johnny's comments.

The attracting of rubberneckers is a risk but not a given. This will basically come down to how strong videosift is as a community to deal with it if it happens. It is my belief that it would strengthen the community. This concern can be addressed by having a trial period after which we run this discussion again and see what we've learnt. That is how a community, real life or web based grows and learns and becomes stronger.

Defining the clips for tagging etc. comes down to human judgement and you just put your faith in the person doing it, based on what you know about them.

As for being narrow minded about focussing on Iraq & Afghanistan, I actually think that focussing on these wars is a direct response to what we are being fed by mainstream media. We hear 'war on terror' every single day on TV, so let's damn well show the war on terror.

And do we need to show people the same graphic 'stuff' that has traumatised soldiers on the ground? Well if it creates some empathy toward what we are asking these guys to go through for what we are told is *our benefit* then absolutely yes.

And finally - if this goes ahead I hope that it occasionally shows a human element. I watched a clip on liveleak recently, a young soldier playing 'all along the watchtower' on his acoustic guitar. It reminded me that these are real people down there and brought home the reality of what is happening outside of the abstract debate of the necessity of this war.

We should show what is happening and keep showing it every single hour of every single day until every serviceman and woman serving in Iraq & Afghanistan are home.

This vid may help to enrich this discussion:

http://www.videosift.com/video/Enemy-Image-Documentary-on-War-CoveragePublic-Manipulation

I often pipe in late in a big conversion to summarize and make my own observations. Farhad's pretty much said everything I had to say, though.

I will say, though, that two levels of NSFW, garden-variety NSFW and extreme-but-allowed-because-reasonable-per-this-thread GRAPHIC makes sense.

The observation that a better than term than "graphic" would appropriate isn't a bad idea, either. Which term you use is another brainstorm in itself. "GORE"? no.

"ULTRA REAL" or something along those lines.

"UNCENSORED" or something like that is also a possibility.

"RAW" is another possibility, and less misleading than uncensored, which could be uncensored. Local TV station CityTV had/has a feature called "in the raw" where they just post the raw news footage they've recorded of some events.

Ok, so "RAW" is my proposal.

I like graphic. I realize that it may be misleading for those that are non-native English speakers, but graphic means exactly what we need it to in English. I think that as long as it's turned of by default, like NSFW, then when you turn it on it will have a small description of what exactly *graphic is in reference to.

"I'm sorry rougy, but that is a fallacy. Look at Vietnam for proof otherwise. The country was seeing it, was outraged, and it took another 7 or 8 years after those images started getting broadcast before we finally got out."

Good point, jonny.

Yet I still think that showing the reality of the war, however flawed, will hasten the war's end, however slow the process may be.

Also, in every interview and article that I've read, the number one nemesis to the Vietnam war, according to the war's proponents, was media coverage.

"I'm also worried that it will begin to attract folks into this community who are interested in little more than watching these types of vids for the shock value...."

Another good point, but I think I agree with Irishman. True, it might happen, but it's not a given. And if it does happen, there's no reason that I can see why the mods of this site can't rollback the rules until the riff-raff lessens.

Frankly, I don’t think that VS will attract the same crowd as LiveLeak, but I could be wrong.

I also think that "graphic" would be a good tag.

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OK, trying to distill some consensus here. It looks like we are aiming for a "graphic" warning/filter similar to NSFW, a "War" channel - and removing of the text in the posting guidelines around "snuff".

(that's what I'm hearing at least)

I am with Krupo in that we should use the term RAW as opposed to GRAPHIC... because it is not only non-native English speakers who might confuse 'graphic' with animation or other such media, but English speakers of other countries, as I'm pretty sure that just about everywhere else in the world uses it to refer to animated, or illustrated materials... only in this country has it somehow evolved to describe violent or gory material.

Also, RAW denotes that we are talking about REAL, quite often uncut footage, as are most of these vids, whereas the term GRAPHIC could just as easily be applied to something like this, and the last thing I want to do is have this tag (which is meant to flag videos that potentially contain real death and violence) be applied out of confusion to excerpts from the latest Saw, or Halloween movie. I mean, god bless my cheesy horror flicks but we are making a distinction between reality and Hollywood, and I would also suggest that on the submission page next to the button to apply this *RAW tag we have short definition of just what it means.

More from Raven in a moment... but I just wanted to submit my opinion on that right now... other topics need further rumination.

But yes Dag, that seems to be a good summation of things thus far:

1. A RAW filter similar to the NSFW filter (strictly defined of course to make sure submitters understand that this applies to footage of real events.

2. A 'War on Terror' Channel is obviously needed and as soon as I hear back from Silvercord or find a taker for the HorrorShow I will definitely be starting this up.

3. A rewriting of the guidlines to allow violence and death in War footage, the actual wording of this I am sure will need to be refined over the next few days as more people add their voices to this thread.

More from me on points 2 & 3 shortly...

Raven, quality stuff here and I want to thank you for that.

I want to stress one thing to you and Dag though, we seem to have strayed from the "war on terror" only point of view and I still worry a bit about that opening up the floodgates to Liveleak. Can we still stress in the wording that this is for war and related footage ONLY and everyday snuff such as "worker gets decapitated on job" is still going by the wayside. I think we still need to establish a sense of an upstanding community here as to not attract those lurkers who may only be probies and upvote what now would be very questionable.

Also let's stress some evidence in the posting guidelines on the RAW tag and connect it with the new rewriting of the snuff definition.

Oh, agreed completely Snipe, the guideline prohibiting yer garden-variety on camera deaths (like weightlifting accidents or cops tazering people to death) is not being completely eliminated, rather, an exception is being put in place only for footage of war or battle fronts... this should be for all battle fronts, not just those in Iraq and Afghanistan, because, as jonny pointed out, conflicts in other parts of the world are just as important.

However, this new 'War on Terror' channel will be limited to engagements being fought by the US military (and allies) against the various manifestations of 'terror' (as defined by the US government)... this incorporates fronts in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and, gods forbid, any other fronts they choose to add to this war. The content of this channel will essentially be like the content of my playlists Mess-O-Potamia (317 videos) & Vids from the Front (60 videos), both of which I have been actively maintaining for the last year (even though for some reason their data is saying they are both only about a 2 months old- must be a mix up from the switch to 3.0, hmmmm... ). Anyway, between the two playlists, there are 377 videos... which is a good number and suggests that a 'War on Terror' channel has been needed for some time now.

Given that this is a popular topic, and one that usually generates some of the most interesting discussion here on the sift, I think this channel will also be a good way to really test drive some of the new bells and whistles given to us in 3.0, namely the ChannelTalk discussion areas, and the customizable sidebars- I've already got some ideas for this, like creating a del.ici.ous account just for the Channel, like mlx has done over at Rock & Roll, so users can submit related web links. Really, I'm looking forward to this challenge, and as always, the Raven is itchin' to categorize and file

One related subject not covered in this thread was the use of the military in undeclared wars. I only bring it up because of the Korean and Vietnam police actions that we now use the word "war" without much thought. I thought I should point this out to those younger folks who might not be familiar with that aspect of those conflicts.

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

OK - thanks everyone for all of the input. I think we have enough information. I'm *unstickying now, but looks for some updates soon. Thanks Raven for launching the meeting.

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