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

maybe the long channel name should be changed to "viral marketing"?

When we first thought up this channel - I think the idea was to "out" stealth viral campaigns and brand them viral, as a warning - and as a way to say "you didn't hoodwink us - clever marketeers".

Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it now more about putting out videos that are likely to capture an audience and slapping a brand name in there?

If it's only for "Viral Marketing" then that's what it should be called. A viral video is a video all your friends send you and you immediately send it out to anyone who didn't send it to you....Star Wars Kid for example. Viral Marketing on the other hand tries to use the power of the viral video to promote something and it may or may not actually become "viral" depending on how well it is done and peoples reaction to it.

This problem extends beyond the viral channel, though 'viral' is probably the most abused. I would hate to have to confirm each of my channel inclusions for every post, but there should be some way to force a user to read the description for the first couple of times they post a vid into a particular channel.

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

There's a few loosely related meanings for viral I think.

Marketing people sometimes refer to "a viral" - as a low-cost stealthy way of promoting a product by making the general public forward it on to their friends- sometimes it's not easy to tell what the product is.

I agree that a video can be "viral" meaning it spreads organically by people forwarding it around, without it being a marketing campaign - but I wasn't thinking of this when we created the channel.

We can either:

a) enlarge the meaning to include the wider "viral" meaning - in which case 50% of all our videos would probably fit in that channel.

b) remove the viral channel because it's confusing - viral marketing videos would fall into the commercial channel.

c) Try and make the meaning clearer for the "viral marketing" definition by modifying the channel name or providing more descriptive text.

edit: - or d) do nothing

mmmh.

it is confusing, yes.

limiting it to viral marketing is not good, because in this case they will always ALSO be commercial videos. And having a channel which is a subset of another is not nice.

I thought viral channel was intended as both viral marketing, and non-commercial viral videos. That does not mean EVERY video, of course, only the most blandant ones, such as praerie dog. But yes, in fact I don't know where to draw the line, and not even HOW. So... dunno.

I'd say we should see if someone could provide a good definition of what fits into that channel and what not.

Hmm.. How to loosen the definition of a viral video so that it doesn't include everything here?

Well, I guess the easiest way to do that would be to say something that is becomes a meme (Star wars kid, numa numa guy, drama king) is a viral video. But therein lies the problem. How can yo submit something that will become a meme and know it will end up as a viral?

Maybe the viral tag should be earned as an invocation only? And be seconded like a ban? That wold sort of be like a little VS hall of meme. That way not just any video gets the title, and only the ones that are considered by some of the more veteran sifters to be memes become a viral.

So basically, only the videos that explode over the internet can be tagged as a viral, or ones that really hold true to the original meaning of "viral marketing".

but I wasn't thinking of this when we created the channel.
GAYTV also started out as "Give Away Your TV, but is now host to all sorts of make-me-shudder creepiness.

I can't come up with a perfect solution, and other than blocking the viral tag to those without stars/confirming channel assignment, that's the best I have.
I just know that it gets annoying not only for me, but for others as well.

And jonny, I wasn't talking about confirming all your channel selections, just the viral.

The channel's title is already "Viral Ads" and has a pretty clear description of what videos belong.

The problem is that people add videos assuming they know what videos belong without bothering to ever look at the channel title or description.

I think the best solution is to just comment on the post that it doesn't belong (perhaps with a link to the channel in question) and invoke *nochannel without re-adding to the valid channels so the submitter really notices and takes a minute to check out why it was removed before manually adding back into other channels. Actually, this can be said for any invalid channel assignment.

Post is not associated with any channels - ignoring nochannel request by lucky760.

VIRAL

a) something that an ordinary person made for fun or personal use and didn't expect would go all around the world, e.g. star wars kid.

b) something that bastard marketeers made in the desperate HOPE that youtube would pay for the distribution of their vile message via clueless users who don't care where something's from as long as it's lol, omg or wtf. e.g. Will It Blend? this is ALWAYS commercial too.

i think maybe you should just put everything in commercial if it is selling something, and put starwars kid in comedy,wtf

DELETE the viral category. it's the only sensible thing to do. dag's point is covered by the commercial tag. noncommercialvirals don't need a viral tag. in a way, anything on VS has already gone viral. will it be hard to find drama king without a viral tag? no.

if you have a problem, the delete key is your friend. otherwise this will come up again and again and again and again.

You're just trying to avoid more coding!
So, if you were to go that route, maybe have Sifty send em an email letting them know that they need to check the channel assignments on their video.. and maybe their video is not available for voting until they 'confirm' it or whatever... that might make people think twice about slapping an inappropriate channel on there.

Mink is right. Get rid of it. Videos will fit nicely into other channels and it won't be missed. I think the very fact that no one is sure what it represents is surely an indication of it's usefulness.

IMO: Now that the commercial collection is a channel we should do away with viral. As was said, probably not less than 50% of the videos here could be considered viral if you expand the meaning beyond marketing. The only other sensible alternative would be to reclassify the term to mean non-marketing videos with a viral nature, but that would require ripping through the current channel and removing the tag from said non-virals. And that still would not prevent the misapplication. Viral does not appear to add value beyond labeling viral marketing which is just *commercial.

Commercial is good.

*meme as a hall of fame post event invocation, maybe. (doesn't having 200+ votes count as this anyway?)

Do away with viral. The too high incidence of miss use/attribution is likely to continue forever otherwise.

The problem is that people add videos assuming they know what videos belong without bothering to ever look at the channel title or description.

Squash viral, and gather around it, pokin' it with sticks-

So is this the new opinion? Dump the channel all together? I can live with that.

I can live with it also. I'm never inspired to view a video that is marked as viral either. I don't think anyone loses if viral goes. Now can we just agree on comment voting

This is amazingly civil. Last time I pointed out the definition of the Viral tag from the FAQ, I was told I didn't know what I was talking about and to "shut the fuck up".

I'd lean towards eliminating it at this point.

I don't see the logic in the arguments to get rid of the viral channel. Let's see if I can sum them up -

1) We have a commercial channel, and viral would just be a subset of that.
We have a Music, LiveMusic, and RockNRoll channels too. Also the Election08 channel is obviously a subset of Politics, Grindhouse and HorrowShow are subsets of Cinema, etc.

2) Expanding the definition outside of marketing would include 50%+ of the vids here.
I agree, but that's not a reason to get rid of the channel. Keep the definition as is.

3) 'Viral' is applied where it doesn't belong (according to it's current definition).
As I wrote above, this problem extends well beyond the Viral Channel. The Science, EIA, Terrible, Sexuality, and Gay channels in particular come to mind.

Keep the current definition and enforce it.

*quality

Awarding MarineGunrock with one star point for this contribution to VideoSift - declared quality by UsesProzac.