I noticed that the video was unavailable so I went to the queue to resubmit it.

Methinks that there needs to be a better way of doing this. Is it not possible for James or dag to just edit the code in a video to reflect changes? Why not just change the embedded html to another duplicate which isnt taken down on YouTube

I believe there's an autopurge function that runs rather automatically.

There's work being done on a "merge" function to combine votes and comments from dead vid and their replacements. No ETA yet, but it's bad form to rush dag.

And yes, the original submitter will be losing vote/published vid 'points'.

Makes me wonder what factors go into a clip's longevity. I presume the bulk of the dead 'uns were pulled by networks or for other copyright reasons. But that doesn't account for all of them.
I'm curious, dag or james, do you have any stats on what percentage of the first few months' postings are now dead?

So if the video is taken out/dead, do you lose the vote points?

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

SFJocko, the bulk of the dead ones are from YouTube. Google Video vets their submissions more carefully I think, so they are less likely to have to kill their vids.

bnsa, yes you lose the points if the video is discarded. About a month ago we did a big automatic purge of dead YouTube videos.

It's probably about time to go it again. This time We will have SiftBot mail the submitter - requesting them to find a replacement, and then if it's still dead 24 hours later, we will discard.

all,

if you notice dead links, you can just edit the post and replace with a working video. (Or a google video version) This will save you from having your post purged and points lost. Maybe a better idea would be a blog-type area where siftbot places broken vids. This would give you a chance to fix, or they get discarded after a week.