I like it.

in the words of Rahm Emanuel: "Never let a serious crisis go to waste".
let's try something different for a change

if it is simpler, i like it. i think it's simpler. so i like it. it might even be close to the "dynamic queuing" thread i made years ago to try to solve the timezone problem.

at this point i don't believe there is a way of getting only "good" videos to escape the queue, so the queue should just do what it is good at, i.e. filtering out the utter crap and giving us a chance to eliminate selflinkers and snuff etc.

everything else that gets through is "not total crap" and potentially somebody's new favourite clip.

the queue is for filtering out shit, not for finding gold.

It's a *quality idea. Beggar's Canyon and Personal Queues wouldn't necessarily disappear. For instance, *begging could instead temporarily reset the view count.

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

So your solution merges the unsifted, beggars, and PQ videos into one?

And videos can't just hang around for weeks, months, or years?

Then I like it too.

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

Wouldn't that mean just a very massive main queue? I suppose - looking at a Sifters "unsifted" would result in a mix of newly posted, unpublished stuff and older unpublished.

>> ^Fjnbk:
Beggar's Canyon and Personal Queues wouldn't necessarily disappear. For instance, begging could instead temporarily reset the view count.

There wouldn't be any point in having them any more. In effect, each user's Personal Queue is folded into their normal queue. The beg command should probably remain, but be changed so that it resets the submission time, making that video count towards your submission limit.

>> ^dag:
Wouldn't that mean just a very massive main queue?

Essentially, yes. But we basically have that already with Personal Queues. This just simplifies the system and makes it easier to see everything unsifted, or to just see the most recent unsifted.

The time filter for viewing the Unsifted tab is an absolutely essential feature.

OK, what I am seeing is the total combined suggestion that we take one system with a few flaws and replace it with a whole new system with a whole new set of flaws!

Sounds like the Legal System: if there is a law that doesn't make sense, make a new law to counter the first law, then amend the law and so on -- instead of just fixing the first law and being done with it!

Why not just ad a few simple fixes instead of changing the whole functionality:

1). Put a limit on total number of videos in the PQueue (Create a vote - 30, 40, 50 PQueues at a time)

2). Create a time limit for the PQueue (Create a vote - 1, 3 or 6 months)

3). I like Begger's Canyon, It's a worthy tool for all of us. Not everyone sees everything the first time, I know I miss all kinds of stuff and I'm on here several hours a day.

4). Lower the level for promoting other peoples posts. I know we can't have all us lower end people just promoting the heck out of our own Vids, that is what Beg is for, But make it easier for us to promote other users posts (use 1 PwrPnt / start at bronze or silver??)

Damn this all very complicated. Can you guys just bullet point what you wanna say in the most simplistic way possible? Kinda like Sagemind. Here's mine -

1. PQ videos should not be able to sit indefinitely. They should expire.

2. PQs should hold a finite amount of videos. Say, maybe three.

3. There should be a minimum vote count to get a video into your PQ.

4. PQ browsing should be streamlined. Going out of your way to a specific individual's PQ is too arduous.

all this is crap. Edeot you say this is complicated then you write 4 tweaks. sagemind it doesn't matter how wonderful your tweaks might be, the whole thing is too complicated. None of the features we have added here have really improved the situation. Comment voting didn't improve the comments here, for example.

jonny on the other hand proposed sweeping away some of the crap here, not tweaking the crap. we can all sit here and debate various tweaks forever, and it will be useless. What we need is to simplify. an automatic system that gives all videos an "airing" of equal exposure, regardless of timezones, and which does away with all these queues, publish dates, republish dates and invocations is a GOOD idea. Simplicity is beauty and efficiency.

to get rid of some of these clunky features and replace them with a simpler system is a good idea. to "improve" the clunky features is impossible. it was a mistake to build them in the first place. i mean, i don't even KNOW all the rules and invocations in this place any more, i got bored trying to keep track of it.

And time zone bias really really sucks.

I whole heartedly agree. I think it would be prudent if VS would examine other successful social media sites, such as Digg and Reddit, and see where they got it right.

Neither of those sites have anymore than one place for their upcoming/unsifted stories.

But we have three - Unsifted, Beggars Canyon, and PQ

And neither have anymore than one way to dispose of a story/video.

But we have two - Discard and Kill

And you can promote, but you can also doublepromote.

It's all too complicated, and it seems to me that whenever a problem arises, the recourse that is fallen back on is to try and make everyone happy which leads to implementing too many solutions.

And the worst part is - this sort of complication is absolutely menacing to new users.

Double post - sorry.

^very well put, and another very good point there about new users. I think if I arrived here now I would be very put off by the size of the FAQ (if that many Q's are being A'ed F'ly then maybe the system is too complicated?)

Also the many menu buttons, submenu buttons, sidebars, headers and footers are just bewildering (and expensive to serve afaik).

OK, I understand the "Clunkyness" factor, especially as the site grows.
And I understand that things seem to be all over the place with regards to Unsifteds, Beggers & PQs before being sifted (3 strikes & you're out).

Perhaps then, what I am also hearing is that the information architecture is flawed. The way the information is being served to us. Maybe the above menu bar is partially at fault.

I'm not making personal suggestions for myself, I'm OK with however this ends up. I suppose the deciding factor (in my mind) is how easy is this for new users? The process should somehow flow in a way that makes perfect sense. Nothing should be hidden like PQs are now, and the menu bar should group functions in a better order.

I like the idea of doing "Something" with the PQed videos, only because I don't think this should be a black-hole area where videos sit forever untouched and horded. I also don't want to see it go away because it gives us a place to put a selection of sifts that we "personally" really like and sometimes a human decision outweighs an automatic computerized decision.

i just had a vid die in the queue, it's not total shit, and there's probably 10 people on here who would appreciate it. The only thing i can think of to fix that problem is to remove time zone bias and allow us to filter by "favourite users" so we don't miss the obscure stuff from our sift buddies.

people get obsessed with "what sifts" but i care more about "what i watch" and of course "how can i get to my kind of stuff quicker?". If i had a stream with all my favourite sifters vids in it then i wouldn't care if they sift or not because i could see them easily anyway.

anyway, i like jonny's radical proposalism.

I like the idea of replacing the unsifted timelimit with a 40 view threshhold, and making beg just reset the view counter. I'm not sure that 40 views is the right number, but perhaps we could examine the stats to see what the average view/vote ratio is on 9 and 10 vote videos.

I don't see it changing pqueues at all, though. After all, what happens to videos that don't get 10 votes in 40 views?

Maybe we just need another tab that lumps all pqueue vids together, and sorts them by vote & hotness.

Mostly though, I don't understand where this feeling is coming from that Videosift needs radical changes...is there some consensus that Videosift has some sort of crippling problem, other than *cough* backups and funding?

Am I just living in the bubble of the sift-elite, and have failed to notice a revolution fomenting just outside my community's polished brass gates?

It's kinda frustrating though not getting any feedback. Is anybody reading this or are we talking to ourselves?

Would one of the Siftalk polls be in order? Or maybe a sticky?

Feedback from me? I was waiting for more people to comment. I think it hasn't gotten much attention because there have been 10 or so talk posts since I posted it. It got buried pretty quickly.

Maybe I should clarify a few things. Here's the essence of the proposal:

1) Videos will only expire from the queue after being viewed by X number of unique users. (Maybe this should be after falling below some threshold of votes/view ratio. It occurs to me that a video with 1 vote and 40 views is vastly different than one with 9 votes and 40 views.)

2) Users are allowed to submit 1, 3, or 6 videos every 2 days (depending on status - probation, normal, charter). This limit is accomplished by allowing each user's queue to grow indefinitely, but only allowing 1, 3, or 6 videos in each queue with a submission date more recent than 2 days ago.

3) The Unsifted tab adds a time filter. Each viewer is able to select the number of days of unsifted videos included in the listing. The range is 1 to infinity. Default is 2 days.

4) Personal Queues and the Beggar's Canyon are removed. When a video expires due to reaching X votes, it is discarded as was done prior to Personal Queues.

5) The beg invocation remains (or perhaps is replaced with the old requeue invocation), but instead of sending the video to a special page, it simply resets the video's submission date. This will effectively take up a queue slot for that user. It does not reset the number of views.

That's pretty much it. I don't really think it's all that radical. I titled it that way to get some attention on the post. Like I wrote in the initial post, I came up with this idea several months ago, but didn't think anyone would go for it. The inspiration was having 100+ videos in my Personal Queue, most of which had fewer than 10 unique views. In particular, I found it frustrating to have so many with an equal number of votes as views. Anyone that watched them voted for them, but no body bothered to watch them for whatever reason.


Netrunner, we don't have a specific tab for it, but it's pretty easy to get all of the pqueued vids together on one page, sorted by votes (it's not perfect, because PQueued status doesn't seem to be updated in real time for searches). You can also limit that search on a per-channel basis.

give up jonny, these suggestions are only ever implemented if dag and lucky were already thinking about doing them.

at this point, any simplification is an admission of failure and they don't seem ready for that. they don't even engage in the discussion. i was waiting for them to prove me wrong but they didn't.

like i said, i was suggesting queue expiration by viewcount in like 1994 or something. They just say a couple of vague criticisms and go off somewhere else.

Meanwhile, i noticed not a lot of people are donating to the site since the crash, and we still have intense dynamic pages burning server power.

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

^ Oh wow, what happened to the new Mink? Do I need to take back the acceptance of your apology now?

Well, I certainly apologise for not not contributing more in this thread - as you might understand, Lucky and I have been a bit busy with other issues on the Sift of late - in addition to the fact that we are both working full-time jobs outside the Sift. So sorry we're not living up to your expectations as usual Mink.

So sorry we're not living up to your expectations as usual Mink.

Speaking of which, you're gonna be late for my breakfast in bed, Dag! No time for the matride outfit, just come as you are!

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

^ You're not dead are you? Oh my queen.

dag i never said i would stop criticising. and all my criticism since the crash has been calm and logical and truthful. but you ALWAYS respond when i damage your pride, and then you don't respond to the suggestions you just criticise my personality.

This wasn't even my suggestion, it was jonny's, so what's your excuse for ignoring him while you type out another snide attack on the MINK?

Think about that.

^Mink, if I was Dag I'd take your first two sentences there personally as well. Stick to making suggestions about the site rather than offering personal digs. Show a bit of patience and the debate will bear fruit.

I too have a busy life and I've only now had a chance to type something. I just don't know if these suggestions are good or not. For me the site works. I enjoy it and it has taken up too much of my spare time - lord knows how bad it would be if every sifted video was a cracker, personal queues were banished or emptied quickly and no one had a bad word to say.

I will say that there are other sift talks suggesting ways of improving the site when alot of work has gone into making it the way it is. Will the next generation come along and say "hey this is al crap, why do we have buttons for everything when we could just type in commands?!" Yes, you can improve but I'm against change for the sake of it.

The most pressing issue is that of finance - any changes have to be framed as a way of saving money and encouraging more contributions. Paying a one-off fee to submit video for example. That's a decent spam filter, simplifies the UI and raises money.

Mink@dag "but you ALWAYS respond when i damage your pride, and then you don't respond to the suggestions you just criticise my personality."

Someone's in love.

Wow, it only took 2 days for this to get knocked to page 2 of sift talk. Maybe I should sticky it. I wonder if that would help the signal to noise ratio in here. Would it be possible to stick to the proposal I'm making instead of all the s(n)ide remarks and general comments about how terrible or wonderful VS is?

Deano - I'm not proposing changes for the sake of change. I think the proposal will improve the user experience. As for financial impact, if anything, this proposal should reduce some bandwidth requirements by simplifying the interface, and removing a couple of features. Also, the time filter on the Unsifted tab will likely result in less bandwidth, as I imagine more people will choose to set the filter to a shorter time frame rather than a longer one.

I appreciate the thought you and others have put into this, but I like how things are now. Since that doesn't offer a whole lot to this discussion, I hadn't replied until now. I wonder if the reason why this doesn't have a higher number of people participating in it is because a lot of other people feel the same way. That is, they're just not interested in these proposed changes.

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

MINK-

I read Jonny's post - asked for a clarification in the thread and continued to monitor the discussion when I could.

Sift Talk posts are not "letters to Dag" they're for discussion and consideration by the community.

You're right, personal insults do get a response from me - like many people I'm a sucker for troll bait.

Don't bother apologising again.

^ So, at the risk of pissing you off more, do you think you could, um, you know, maybe comment on the proposal? Do you think it has any merit? Might it help reduce bandwidth requirements at all? Is it technically possible? I guess that last one is more for Lucky.

I think the answer is yes to all of 3, but it might be nice to hear from the big guy. So I don't feel like I'm wasting my time. If you think it's a bad idea, just say so. You won't hurt my feelings.

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

Sure, absolutely not pissed off at all and more then happy to chime in.

The system we have now is kind of complex, but I think your suggestion brings with it its own complexity too - if videos don't expire out of the queue in a time-based fashion, they are more than likely to hit 40 unique views *eventually* and get published, which sort of defeats the purpose of trying to get a higher quality of post filtered in.

I do think is that we need simplification, and I've been reading this thread and the others over the past couple of weeks for ideas.

The truth is that Lucky and I have begun planning VideoSift 4.0 with a very well-known Sifter who does fabulous UI work.

We are in the very early stages and very soon I'd like to post a workshop discussion with links to this post and the streamlining the Sift post and a few others. Change is coming to VideoSift.

Sounds like someone likes to get high off of anticipation.

You could be a producer for JJ Abrams.

It's me! The queue will now be know as the "gate" and will be shaped like a giant vagina and to get a video you have to donate the equivalent of 3 drinks to siftbot, who'll take pity on you. Everybody wins.

>> ^dag:
The truth is that Lucky and I have begun planning VideoSift 4.0 with a very well-known Sifter who does fabulous UI work.

>> ^dag:
if videos don't expire out of the queue in a time-based fashion, they are more than likely to hit 40 unique views eventually and get published, which sort of defeats the purpose of trying to get a higher quality of post filtered in.

And that's different than Personal Queues how exactly? Anyway, I suggested an alternative to that. Base the expiration on the votes/views ratio. If it falls below some threshold, it's gone (.2, perhaps -- 4 out of 5 users agree, this video sucks). That is the essence of how we measure quality now.