I think we should either find some work-around, proxies maybe, and failing that ban videos from Comedy Central. It does really suck though, because usually these videos can only be found on Comedy Central.

If VS needs to stop those vids to preserve quality I'm all for it. But I really have strong feelings both ways, so I can't decide.

Short version: What dag said.

Long version:
While I enjoyed a lot of their content when it did work, and i see no reason for us to stop US sifters from viewing their content, it dosen't look good for Vids to appear Dead as dag notes. Theres a reason why we let people mark videos as * dead and its not just so that new links can be found, its so that the sift itself doesn't stay full of invalid content. The presence of working links keeps the sift a place of * quality and that gets put in jeopardy by too many deads. While i now know not to bother with a comedy central sourced sift, many new or casual people might not realize why they don't work and have the negative experience of the dead link colour their impression of the sift as a whole.

For that reason, I think a policy of baning all restrictive access hosts makes sense. Their content doesn't benefit the sift as it should, and doing so doesn't restrict US people from viewing said vids from the source site, if the need a CC fix.

Restrictive IS * dead sufficiently to warrant being treated as such, in my view.

Cut them loose. This site isn't VideoSiftAmerica so cut them loose. We have enough Daily Show clips anyway.

Thanks for asking dag. I would agree to remove CC, since it really is annoying if the clips don't work and if one doesn't know the backgrounds (which i guess is often the case) he/she/it could blame VS, and we don't want that, do we?

It's really a pity because i love CC's stuff but i think it would be the best...

Besides: i really enjoy the democratic character of VS

Would the Comedy Central videos already sifted be deleted? My top two sifts are from Comedy Central.

Does anyone know why CC did this? Is it possible that any inquiry from a VideoSift person would be of any use? Depending on who you talk to, you might get someone who admits that comedy central appreciates the publicity afforded by services like VideoSift.

Alternatively it might be an option to have a non-US portal that is completely identical only with all the Comedy Central clips not showing up in the queue, sift and top 15.

I thought about that too, a US version with CC videos and one for the rest.

But on second thought it would split this page apart. Think about it:
Comments on videos you cant see, different TopSifts lists depending on where you come from and so on...

I say the easiest way is: Kick em out

Though they were always a great contribution to the site, this is their way of saying they don´t want to be friends with us anymore.

I wonder if the Sift can live without Stewart, Colbert and South Park...

As much as I love the CC vids, I'm going to have to agree; if it's not working for a good chunk of members, there's no reason to hold onto them.

Yes cyberbeast.....yes it can!!!!

Can we please make a decision on this by, Guy Fawkes day?? I would love to remember, the 5th of November as, the "Videosift Treason and Plot!!"
Some of you know how adamant I am personally, in my opposition to Comedy Central's canned, live laughter, her coke-addled writers, her doubleplusunclever pundits, and the litter, that is, an inordinate amount of posts here, from the whore of 17-something sarcasm, and meaningless editorializing..... "Good Riddance, Comedy Central!!!"

oh, and to all you who have used the whore's teat, as a vote-getter....TOO BAD

Even as an American I have a problem with Comedy Central's videos, in that they only post most of them for a limited time before they're pulled, thus leading to a pile of dead video links anyway. Don't get me wrong, I often love their content, but if they can't be reliable then unfortunately I think we should pull the plug on them.

One big question arises, however: Will this give the diamond-level members an unfair advantage? They can post any flash-based video they want, and since Comedy Central clips are extremely popular here I'd hate to see only a select few have access to guaranteed vote-getters. Think it over.

Can't we just ban all the non U.S. users?

But seriously...I think removing CC is the only choice we have. The only thing I ask is if we are going to drop the existing CC sifts that we do it in a way that they can be restored with votes and comments intact if CC eventually pulls their head out of their ass and open themselves up again to the rest of the world.

BTW...does anyone know if the "myspace" embed that CC supplies is also blocked?

toss the bums out, that's my vote.

Here is what I try to do. I submit the official videos, then try to find a non-CC ones to go with my submissions. However, it seems like those were pulled from youtube.com, etc.

I liek the idea of having U.S. link. Like a tag? So those who can't see them, can filter them out. Of course doing this risks less votes and views.

Don't allow as a host anymore, but don't toss out the ones we have now. That would drop a lot of star points from some members.

Viacom shot themselves in the head when they decided to stream their own content and not go into a profit sharing deal with youtube.

The CC video servers are terrible even when they work. When was the last time anybody had choppy, video because youtube didn't keep enough bits flowing for the video to run in real time? on CC it happens ALL THE TIME. The forced vid ads on their own site just compounds to the frustration, even the ads hang. And now non-US sifters can't see them?

This really is way beyond absurd they don't provide quality streaming, so while I like much of the video they offer I can't see how Viacom's video servers meet the *quality requirement of the sift, much less accessibility for anybody outside the USofA.

Lets dump um, and send their PR office an e-mail about it.

Invocations (quality) cannot be called by dgandhi because dgandhi is not privileged - sorry.

*quality because dganhi said so!

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

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Why thanQ ant. I'm drafting an open letter to Comedy Central as we speak. I will post it here and maybe we can raise a bit of a ruckus - or a brouhaha - either one really will do.

Maybe we should do the same too. Is this through e-mail or snail mail?

Obviously the answer is for VideoSift to purchase plane tickets for people to come to America.

Jesus, do I have to take care of everything?? It isn't exactly easy for me to keep this site afloat!

Good riddance! Enjoyable clips but ultimately useless and I'm not jumping through hoops to go and watch them.

And a quick follow-up - Can any of you international users view the video embeds on dailyshow.com?

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I'll probably just post it here- and then try and get a bit of grassroots promotion on other sites to get it in front of the right people at Comedy Central. I don't think email or snail mail is very effective for these kinds of things anymore.

Karaidl - the people who like the Daily Show, are probably the least likely to want to immigrate in the current environment. I will limit myself to astral projection at least until November '08.

Sounds good to me.

@karaidl: yep, see em (in berlin/germany)

I'm international and I can see the videos on the front page of dailyshow.com, but when I click on "Videos" I get nothing.

CC sets up to embeds for their videos...one regular and one for "myspace" is there a way to test if the "myspace" embeds from CC are also blocked? If they aren't can we use those instead?

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Really, what's an example of the myspace ones?

Hmmm...looks like they may be phasing that out too. When clicking on the embed button at CC there are supposed to be two versions of the code: one for Myspace users and one for users of other sites. But now that I look at it the code appears to be identical in both windows.

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OK, Lucky has disabled Comedy Central- we will remove it's graphic from the little tiles - but it would be nice to find a replacement first to keep our graphical symmetry.

Also, Diamonds will still of course have the ability to submit from Comedy Central, but we would kindly ask you to refrain.

I'll be posting my open letter to Comedy Central- Monday morning in the US. Stay tuned, and help us spread the word. It would be amazing if VideoSift could help overturn this policy!

As much as I love the Comedy Central embeds, I say ban 'em. If Comedy Central won't accommodate our requests here, there are plenty of sites who will (www.funnyordie.com, www.superdeluxe.com, www.collegehumor.com).

Karaldi:
Yeah, i can watch the Dailyshow.com vids once java script was enabled for that site (I block for sites unless i actually want it). (UK)

Does anyone know WHY they don't allow outside US members to see the videos? I'd like to see them still very much but it indeed seems that I'm unable to. (Finland)

what's the point? of course they should be removed, lol.

sillma: Probably something to do with money and control. Not really sure.

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*unsticky - Open letter goes up Monday morning, 9AM Eastern time.

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