VideoSift v4.2
Welcome to VideoSift v4.2! It's been a year and a day since we launched v4.1 and we're long overdue for a few changes or even, dare I say, improvements. These new upgrades to the Sift aren't overly extensive, so we've just bumped our version up by 0.1.
As suggested by @kronosposeidon a while back, on the search results page you will be provided the option of jumping to a Google search if the Sift search is not providing the results you're looking for.
Perhaps the most obvious bit of info we've never included (for various reasons) is video duration. You may have already noticed that some videos are now displaying a "length" value. Whenever a video is submitted or edited, the length is determined by siftbot automatically whenever possible. For videos or video hosts that don't provide the video length, submitters can specify the length on the submit/edit form.
*Length Invocation
Along with the above new feature and given that there are hundreds of thousands of videos without a known length, Bronze Star
members and above can use the new *length invocation on videos to update the post. It must be used like *length=1:15:30 with colons (:) included to separate hours, minutes, and seconds. If a unit of time is not applicable, you can leave that part off. For example, on a video that is one minute long the invocation could be *length=1:00 or *length=60. Note that this invocation cannot be used on your own videos. To adjust the length of your own video, just edit the post.
Video Thumbnails
Bronze Star members and above can now modify the thumbnail image for other member videos that have none. (See this post for instructions on how to create thumbnails from videos.)
Update: Members can find a new listing under the "Front" tab listing all videos missing a thumbnail image.
Assister
The Assister achievement will be awarded to users who put effort into helping videos submitted by other members to achieve high success.
Ban Police
The Ban Police achievement will be awarded to users dedicated to scraping the scumbags of the Internet off the bottom of siftbot's shoes.
Time Keeper
The Time Keeper achievement will be awarded to users dedicated to keeping videos up-to-date with their current, valid duration.
Thumb Nailer
The Thumb Nailer achievement will be awarded to users dedicated to keeping video listings aesthetically optimal with valid thumbnail images.
The Simple
Google SearchAs suggested by @kronosposeidon a while back, on the search results page you will be provided the option of jumping to a Google search if the Sift search is not providing the results you're looking for.
The Essential
Video LengthPerhaps the most obvious bit of info we've never included (for various reasons) is video duration. You may have already noticed that some videos are now displaying a "length" value. Whenever a video is submitted or edited, the length is determined by siftbot automatically whenever possible. For videos or video hosts that don't provide the video length, submitters can specify the length on the submit/edit form.
*Length Invocation
Along with the above new feature and given that there are hundreds of thousands of videos without a known length, Bronze Star
members and above can use the new *length invocation on videos to update the post. It must be used like *length=1:15:30 with colons (:) included to separate hours, minutes, and seconds. If a unit of time is not applicable, you can leave that part off. For example, on a video that is one minute long the invocation could be *length=1:00 or *length=60. Note that this invocation cannot be used on your own videos. To adjust the length of your own video, just edit the post.Video Thumbnails
Bronze Star
members and above can now modify the thumbnail image for other member videos that have none. (See this post for instructions on how to create thumbnails from videos.)Update: Members can find a new listing under the "Front" tab listing all videos missing a thumbnail image.
The Achievements
We've added a few new achievement badges for Sifters who enjoy evidence of their good deeds on the Sift.Assister
The Assister achievement will be awarded to users who put effort into helping videos submitted by other members to achieve high success.
Ban Police
The Ban Police achievement will be awarded to users dedicated to scraping the scumbags of the Internet off the bottom of siftbot's shoes.
Time Keeper
The Time Keeper achievement will be awarded to users dedicated to keeping videos up-to-date with their current, valid duration.
Thumb Nailer
The Thumb Nailer achievement will be awarded to users dedicated to keeping video listings aesthetically optimal with valid thumbnail images.
40 Comments
lucky760*frontpage!
siftbotPrinting this post atop the VideoSift homepage - frontpage requested by lucky760.
StingrayExcelsior!
Awesome improvements... can't wait to start earning new badges.
SarzyNice. The time thing especially is an awesome addition. *quality
siftbotAwarding lucky760 with one star point for this contribution to VideoSift - declared quality by Sarzy.
antAwesome! Wow, it has been that long since the last upgrade? I can't wait to get some new achievements!
radxAm I right to assume that we use aggregated length for playlists, just like it's the case for the "long" invocation?
xxovercastxxHas quoting been fixed?
dystopianfuturetodayYou're the tops, lucky.
csnel3 says...>> ^Stingray:
Excelsior!
Awesome improvements... can't wait to start earning new badges.
I wanna Ban police Badge, I gotta learn how to get it, Or can I be like Elvis and just request an Honorary Badge? This upgrade gives me purpose, a goal, a reason to sift!
campionidelmondoGoogle search is nice I guess, but why not integrate it into the site just like this instead of just linking to google.com.
JiggaJonson>> ^xxovercastxx:
Has quoting been fixed?
good question
MrFiskCool.
HybridIf there's now the length associated with each video, will you remove the ability to tag videos as brief and long and make that automatic?
chicchorea*
reiwanwill sifter stats ever be looked at from pre-achievement implementation to award achievements based on their passed contribution?
lucky760>> ^radx:
Am I right to assume that we use aggregated length for playlists, just like it's the case for the "long" invocation?
Yep!
>> ^xxovercastxx:
Has quoting been fixed?
Nope!
>> ^campionidelmondo:
Google search is nice I guess, but why not integrate it into the site just like this instead of just linking to google.com.
Planning on it!
>> ^Hybrid:
If there's now the length associated with each video, will you remove the ability to tag videos as brief and long and make that automatic?
Long and brief will get assigned automatically based on the specified length. Other than that, for the moment we're leaving long and brief available as usual, but they're likely to be removed soon.
radxAre the new achievements active yet? I went looking for a particular video earlier today and used the opportunity to test the length-invocation on some 50-60 videos.
blankfistAwesome work, LuckyD.
How do we go about modifying the thumbnail image for other member videos? I looked at someone else's vid for a place to upload a picture of @kronosposeidon's penis, but I found nothing there. Also, I couldn't find a link to upload the image.
Stingray@lucky760: I went to update the thumbnail of a video that has none, but when I fill out the page and hit save changes, it just brings me right back to the same page (to pick the thumbnail and upload it) and it never updates it.
I need to hurry up and get level 325,584,597,456 for thumbnail fixer!
campionidelmondo>> ^Stingray:
@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://lucky760.videosift.com" title="member since May 2nd, 2006" class="profilelink"><strong style="color: rgb(0, 68, 255);">lucky760: I went to update the thumbnail of a video that has none, but when I fill out the page and hit save changes, it just brings me right back to the same page (to pick the thumbnail and upload it) and it never updates it.
I need to hurry up and get level 325,584,597,456 for thumbnail fixer!
Same here, nothing to do with caching or the cdn afaikt. It just doesn't seem to work. Works fine when changing them on your own video, although someone seems to keep changing them to yet a different thumb on my videos.
residueI just tried the length feature and it's working smoothly..
kronosposeidonThe image of your penis can be used on any video in the Fail channel.
>> ^blankfist:
Awesome work, LuckyD.
How do we go about modifying the thumbnail image for other member videos? I looked at someone else's vid for a place to upload a picture of @kronosposeidon's penis, but I found nothing there. Also, I couldn't find a link to upload the image.
lucky760>> ^radx:
Are the new achievements active yet? I went looking for a particular video earlier today and used the opportunity to test the length-invocation on some 50-60 videos.
Yep! Check out this member who's been going buck wild: @Mandtis
>> ^campionidelmondo:
Same here, nothing to do with caching or the cdn afaikt. It just doesn't seem to work. Works fine when changing them on your own video, although someone seems to keep changing them to yet a different thumb on my videos.
Thanks for reporting. All fixed!
lucky760As suggested here by @Hybrid, we have added a new page (for members only) accessible under the "Front" tab labeled "No Thumbs" that lists just all videos missing a thumbnail image.
Thanks for the suggestion!
Mandtis>> ^lucky760:
Yep! Check out this member who's been going buck wild: @<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/Mandtis" title="member since August 9th, 2008" class="profilelink">Mandtis
I do hope that you did not get a message for each one of your videos I *length commented...
Edit: Ahhhh... crap quoting... It does look ok on preview
Stingray@lucky760: If I modify one of my videos to add a length in and I already had added a custom thumbnail previously, my custom thumbnail gets removed when I save it.
I also noticed all my other video thumbnails from YouTube and stuff are being updated when I update my videos for the length.
Could we add in a checkbox to tell siftbot to keep the existing thumbnail when updating? Or cache a variety of thumbnails to choose from?
lucky760>> ^Stingray:
@lucky760: If I modify one of my videos to add a length in and I already had added a custom thumbnail previously, my custom thumbnail gets removed when I save it.
I also noticed all my other video thumbnails from YouTube and stuff are being updated when I update my videos for the length.
Could we add in a checkbox to tell siftbot to keep the existing thumbnail when updating? Or cache a variety of thumbnails to choose from?
Thanks for pointing that out. Historically, any time a post's embed code changed we would try to automatically update the thumbnail. Now that we have manual thumbnail replacement, I've removed that so the automatic thumbnail update will only happen if the video actually has no thumbnail.
HybridThere's another special case that should be considered for thumbnails - dupes. If you dupe two videos, one may have a thumbnail, the system should probably use that if the original video doesn't have one. Same would go for backups. Maybe if someone submitted a backup, if the original video doesn't have a thumb, then the system could request a thumb from the backup???
lucky760>> ^Hybrid:
There's another special case that should be considered for thumbnails - dupes. If you dupe two videos, one may have a thumbnail, the system should probably use that if the original video doesn't have one. Same would go for backups. Maybe if someone submitted a backup, if the original video doesn't have a thumb, then the system could request a thumb from the backup???
I have made it so Siftbot will now assign the dupe's thumbnail to the original post if the original post has none and the dupe has one. Also, if a backup is added to a post lacking a thumbnail, Siftbot will attempt to find the thumbnail from the backup embed code.
*greatideas!
spoco2The length display is the single greatest addition to the internet ever. Thanks Lucky
Stingray>> ^spoco2:
The length display is the single greatest addition to the internet ever. Thanks Lucky
Ditto. I used to put the time in my titles for a long while before I was running out of room and I was tired of maintaining it. Glad it's a site wide maintenance thing now.
campionidelmondoSo now that many videos have thumbs and lengths, maybe the dupe search could use these attributes as criteria for better results?
residuewould it be possible to make the "length" attribute editable without going into "modify video details" or by using invocation? Similar to the tag editor where you can just click an edit button? Maybe just have the "length" icon be clickable to edit it... Not real important, but would cut out invocation clutter. If it would be an arduous task, it probably wouldn't be worth it
ZifnabHow many length invocations have to be made for the Time Keeper badge? I've been doing some housekeeping today and have earned my level three Thumb Nailer and I updated the length on all of the videos I assigned thumnails to and have not received even the first level of the Time Keeper badge....
lucky760@Zifnab: Just another mystery of sift... But @Mandtis and @radx are the only two with the Time Keeper badge and are levels 4 and 3, respectively, so maybe they have some idea.
Mandtis>> ^lucky760:
@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://zifnab.videosift.com" title="member since June 30th, 2006" class="profilelink"><strong style="color: rgb(178, 34, 34);">Zifnab: Just another mystery of sift... But @<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/Mandtis" title="member since August 9th, 2008" class="profilelink">Mandtis and @<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/radx" title="member since January 19th, 2008" class="profilelink">radx are the only two with the Time Keeper badge and are levels 4 and 3, respectively, so maybe they have some idea.
Excuse me?? Only two of us...?? Was I bored that afternoon...
No clue on how many are needed, I just thought heck, I am poor and I do not contribute, so at least I will try to do something useful.
Edit: wtf is wrong with the quoting?? I didn't touch one single character from the quote...
ZifnabWell I just got level one Time Keeper now at about the same time that I got level 4 Thumb Nailer...
lucky760'Grats! And thanks for contributing like the Pillar of Sift that you are. (OMFG, that's a big wall of badges you have there!)
radx@Zifnab
It appears to be [a lot] apiece for a Time Keeper and [not so many] apiece for a Thumb Nailer.
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