Yeah, it's really fascinating. I think this would be a great feature. Of course, if anyone figured out how many hits you could get from VS frontpage.. Or top15.. OMG, this site would be flooded with YouTubers trying to increase their hits.

I really, really like this site. It's a unique gem in the internet world of lists of the same crap videos. Somehow the formula here actually does sift up unique, interesting videos (in a world of lip-syncing webcam mashups). I do worry about the scalability, in both users and number of videos.

It seems this site has been flying under the radar with a few dedicated users doing the majority of the queue voting, and the frontpage and overwhelming large number of people just coming to see what's hot, and never voting. I worry about the rapid growth of active users, and what can happen with content spam (both in videos and comments). Also eventually a group of ten folks can come in an get crap YouTube videos on the frontpage.

It hasn't happened, or at least maybe someone nukes all the offensive comments and spamvertising. Or somehow miraculously the site has thus far avoided this. Go look at the comments on YouTube and you'll see the millions of junk comments and MySpace ads.

Anyways, just a general comment on scaling.. I think we're seeing the tip of this trend as the queue continues to grow inspite of measures to reduce it.

Joedirt,

I take a very active anti spamvertising role. Whenever i see links to people plugging their own content, or what have you i delete it. Then i tell people in no uncertain terms that they are being tools. Repeated abuse results in the ban hammer. As far as people voting up videos on to the front i apply a smell test to videos that just don't seem to belong. If all the users joined that day then i can the video.

It does seem plausible that a group of people, or someone using some tricky ip routing could get by the system. It would however take a lot of work on their part as they would need to build a reputation. The only way to build a reputation is through good videos, voting, and comments. To me it seems like it would probably be a lot of work for questionable return. If your video didn't make it on to the top 15 you would only see negligible advertising returns.

I suppose our real hope is that users will notice such schenanigans and alert us to them. This seems to work pretty well for metafilter, which has a very very angry stance toward such occurrences. We have already had to kill quite a few spam posts, and are certainly not above doing it again in the future.

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

I'm also hoping that as spam and self-links increase, our quality, involved members will increase at (at least) the same rate.

I think this is happening.

I know there is a cadre of "super sifters" But I couldn't be happier with the involvement from newer members as well.

We are always looking for new ways to make VS more of a self-cleansing organ, so happy to hear about ideas for that as well.

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

You are right about the queue though JD, 143 - yikes! Do I hear a 3 day limit coming on?

Yeah im with dag the queue is geting to full and why did we raise votes to where your vid can get out of there?

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

Well we are fighting 2 battles ACE. The high escape level for the queue keeps the front page from going through a complete refresh every couple of hours, without a chance for people to see/comment on them. When it's like that - I feel we might as well go to YouTube directly, because that homey community feel is lost in the deluge.

But yeah, we're also trying to keep the queue to a reasoable level - but if we have to lose a battle, I'd rather it was that one than the front page deluge.

I wonder would it be a good idea to create categories for the vids?
I mean I know you-tube does this to some extent, but with categories like Art, CGI, Movies, TV shows etc you could create a final resting place for vids and leave them to be ranked via category instead of time constraints like month day week etc.

I'm sure you have already considered this and scratched it as an idea, just thought id bring it up.

categories are coming, we've been told.

As far as the two 'problems'.. queue size & front page scroll speed.. I can't see them as problems, just popular site and more submitters. The reason the queue is growing is the 8 vote formula, and lack of voters looking at the queue. So, going to 3 days, might miss good videos, cause who can look through 10 pages of new stuff. You have to get the crap out sooner, or allow more front page posts, or be content with 200+ in the queue.

So allow more downvotes and trust your sifters. Or allow more front page videos. Or make it really hard to get on the front page AND ignore the large size of the queue.

I personally think the way to go is a new queue.. queue. Like a staging area before front page. but that's too confusing. Maybe 3 days will work.. But we're already down to say 60 new submissions in a day and say 6 new front page.. as the more users submit more stuff.. that will hit 100 new submissions.

You could try making it 2 videos per 24 hours.

Anyways if you had categories, the front page deluge would be tolerable. You just couldn't look at 'all' because that would be say 40 new vids per day.

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

One thing we could do - which may seem a bit drastic, but has actually been effective for at leat one site that I know of:

We could shut down new memberships for a period.

This could give us a bit of a breather and allow us time to come together a bit more as a community.

are you an aussie dag? cos im in sydney, i feel close to you already.

1 post per 12 hours would cut the queue in half.

With regard to the original wish of this blog post, page views (or more specifically "object views") as a metric is not nearly as valuable as knowing how many distinct people actually started watching your video. Consider for instance just how many different ways one can get the object/embed code for a particular video to appear. Just off the cuff, I know that you can often find a submitted video in the new queue/front pages, the "story" page, profile pages, and keyword search results.

What is really required for tracking the metric I described is a transparent, custom SWF which loads the originally submitted content and sends a "ping" of sorts back to videosift whenever someone clicks to play the video.

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

I am in Australia - and I am a citizen, but I'm not sure I qualify as an Australia as I've only been here 7 years and I don't understand cricket or the difference between NRL, Aussie Rules, and rugby.

I'm on the Gold Coast. 2 People - that's almost enough for a meetup.

I'm goin to the gold coast for a few days in a fortnight.
Might catch up for a beer

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

Sounds good. I'll shout you a VB. ;-)

Better make it a XXXX, being a qlder now you can't go around offering ppl VB's

WTF.. damn aussies and their inside jokes.. (making me drink f-ing Fosters)

hehe, please for the love of god don't drink fosters. No aussies do, it tastes like crap!

VB = Victoria Bitter which is a pretty standard (nothing better to drink) kinda aussie beer, mostly drunk by sydney siders and melbournians. XXXX is a Queensland beer, because they don't know how to spell beer, but is still one of my favourites.

Bottom line, Fosters is sh*t!