Wow....melty servers....think you'll get the hardware before the stuff assplodes?? Congratulations web site gamblers!!!

Have you considered other designations for folks who might donate more money than what a charter member does already?

I'm not advocating any special powers or more bells and whistles. I'm just suggesting a few more ranks that state these folks were generous enough to donate more. Then somewhere on the Sift, have some kind of patron recognition of their names or screen names.

And I'm not trying to open up the advertising issue. I'm merely proposing some folks might not mind giving you more. In no way would I want to upset the egalitarian sensibility around here. However, if some sifters have the means to give more support, shouldn’t we let them.

That got me all pumped up. Congratulations to yall.

Congratulations to us. I wish that I was charter.

I'd be happy to pay $20 for each three months over the measly $10 I pay now. Especially if I got a t-shirt as a form of "thank you"

Some more stats:

Down votes: 800
Number of those that were ant's: 649

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

I feel a bit funny about the money stuff. On the one hand, I know and appreciate that there are a lot of dedicated Sifters that would gladly donate more to VideoSift to keep us going. On the other hand- I feel it's a bit unfair to rely on a small cadre of donators when so many people are reaping the benefits.

We feel that with our growth- we have a "critical mass" and we should be able to attract sponsors. I'm not happy about our current advertising strategy. Google ads don't work that well. Sifters don't click cheap, cheesy ads. It's a reflection on the sophistication of our members.

So, we'd like to phase Google ads out in preference to site partners and sponsorships. Something like this.

If any sifter works for a company or has contacts with one that would like to sponsor us - please get in touch. We are terrible entrepreneurs so you can take total advantage of us.

Well, I know that no one likes asking for money, and a lot of people don't like giving it out to a site they can use for free, but since 99% of my online time is spent here, and I really love this community, I find it east to part with. If you did offer another tier of charter membership, maybe you could entice someone to go that extra step by say, allowing them to revive a discarded video or letting them requeue more than just one video every two days or whatever it is now. - Just something that would be personal gain for the payer.

Congratulations everybody! I do not stop by often, but I really like this site alot. I had a good feeling it would be successful. I will try so stop by more often in the future and submit a few videos that I enjoy.

*quality

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

w00t!!!

Congratulations to you Dag, James, Lucky and all the rest that run this site. Great job, this community has been so much fun.

God I love the smell of burning server in the morning.

meh
size != strength
see american empire for details

Like Mink I fear the size increasing basically diluting what makes this site so great over time. Be it videos, comments or users.

I eye the future with reserved cynicism.

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

Well, we're not that big. We're still under 10K registered users, and how many of those are active?

It's more about the casual non-members that are coming here because we have good taste and our community works well.

lol dag, you really are a good diplomat, all things to all men

"WE'RE BIG AND THAT'S REALLY COOL!"

"BUT WE'RE NOT BIG SO DON'T WORRY!"



10K registered users is a lot, farhad and i are worried about Dunbar's number... We're way past that.
wikipedia

Fundamental question: Who benefits if we get bigger? Sounds like google and the server company are the ones reaping the rewards at the moment.

Extrapolate: What would it be like with 100K users? Why aim there?

basically: WHY VIDEOSIFT? (can i have that on a tshirt please)

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

Well if Dunbar's number is 150 I don't think we're there. We average around 40-50 people logged in at any one time - and that's how I choose to interpret that idea.

Yes, there are downsides to getting bigger- but there is an upside too. More Sifters means more editors, more source material, more people to vet the queue. More people in comments sticking their hands up and saying "I know something about that". or "I speak Swahili" etc, etc.

We love this place- and it is going to continue to grow- but in a good, sustainable way.

Or maybe VideoSift has jumped the shark - let's all pack up and go home. I'll turn off the lights. (sometimes you people depress the hell out of me)

You "choose" to interpret dunbar's number in totally the wrong way. Really, read it again, it's an interesting concept for any community.

"More people in comments sticking their hands up and saying "I know something about that". or "I speak Swahili" etc, etc. "
that is undoubtedly a very nice advantage of getting bigger. Unfortunately if you are so big the swahili guy never even finds the video because it died in the queue and the search doesn't work properly and people are bad at tagging and the good users are swamped by the bad users... then you are back to square one. I guess strength comes from having a high good/bad user ratio, perhaps regardless of size. Size is a distraction, and is not necessary, especially if you are a bad entrepreneur who doesn't like adverts

But with size, you have a nice easy statistic you can track and applaud... other stuff harder to measure.

Look at YouTube, a bazillion videos and users who usually can't spell insults at each other properly.

lol@farhad.

but the problem with youtube is that it's totally unmoderated, so it can't possibly be better.

having a large quality site is possible, but of course it's difficult.

the important thing is as user base grows, money incomes should grow too, otherwise there's a problem.

Siftopia!

so what's up with the Digg bombing?

I'm one of the biggest cheapskates on the internet...but come on...11 cents a day isn't really asking all that much.

What happens when you click the "site admin" button, Dag?

I was on the floor laughing at the digg joke.

A serious-level interpretation: well digg takes potshots at us - well, a few snarky bitches have done so, saying "duh, ignore the middleman, here's the original YT link" when a link from VS gets posted there. This ignores the maintenance and care that us "middlemen" (and middlewomen) put into making sure the video gardens are groomed properly.

On the idea of special icons for heavier donaters, I always thought (for the past 3 minutes) that a little "moneybags" icon in addition to the star/gem would be appropriate. Or cheesy. Probably both.

Speaking of that wonderful little pledge of shirts to the top 15ers, I would gladly send an electronic envelope in the direction of the Sift for an extra shirt - I mean, if you'll have a shipping cost anyway, might as well make the most of it...

Perhaps per-channel sponsors make sense. Cooking, Tech, etc..these are established niches/demopraphics. (metamucil / robot insurance ads on the classic movie channels)

I think distributing power such as banning sure helps to propagate community norms. An example: the 'intellegent design' spammer getting his ass bounced. Distributing power seems to scale up well and resist most attacks.

All hail Siftbot!

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

The Digg thing was a paraphrase of this infamous mic check. Too obscure?

dag, I met up with a forbidden message via your link.

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

Hmm, just a wav file- but here's a YouTube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zv13ZnkpWos

LOL that was fun

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

>>What happens when you click the "site admin" button, Dag??

It just links to a chat window with Siftbot. That's where we ask it nicely to do stuff.

What happens if you call him a useless wanna-be Altair 8800?

I think it's a great idea to raise the charter amounts for people who want to give more. Dual Xeon servers aren't cheap.

I second that.
You can raise the charter amount, I'll be there !

Or make a "second level" subscription, more expensive, but which gives access to some extra privilege like *tazer or so ...

I for one am optimistic about the future of the sift. Thanks to Dag, Lucky, and James for all your hard work.