Hobbit Hole Breakfast: Two eggs fried right into the center of grilled Cheddar bun halves. Served with two strips of bacon and crispy hash browns topped with melted shredded Cheddar cheese and bacon.

Shire Sausage Skillet: Shire sausage with seasoned red-skinned potatoes, sautéed mushrooms and fire-roasted peppers and onions served on a sizzling skillet. Topped with shredded Cheddar cheese and two eggs.

Frodo's Pot Roast Skillet: Slow-cooked pot roast, herb-roasted carrots, celery, mushrooms and onions over broccoli and seasoned red-skinned potatoes served on a hot sizzling skillet. Topped with shredded Cheddar cheese and served with dinner bread.

The Ring Burger: A hand-pressed burger topped with Pepper Jack cheese, bacon, sautéed mushrooms and mayo on a grilled Cheddar cheese bun. Crowned with three crispy onion rings and served with lettuce, tomato, red onions, pickles and a side of wavy-cut French fries.

Gandalf's Gobble Melt: Tender sliced turkey breast and savory stuffing topped with melted Swiss cheese placed on grilled potato bread with a cranberry honey mustard spread. Served with your choice of side and gravy for dipping.

Dwarves' Turkey & Dressing Dinner: Tender sliced turkey breast, savory stuffing, gravy and cranberry sauce served with your choice of two sides and dinner bread. Feeds a band of Dwarves. Or one hungry human.....or Bear.

Lonely Mountain Treasure: Seed Cake French Toast cut into nine squares and served with a side of cream cheese icing for dipping.

Radagast's Red Velvet Pancake Puppies: Six bite-sized round red velvet Pancake Puppies® made with white chocolate chips and sprinkled with powdered sugar. Served with a side of cream cheese icing for dipping.

Bilbo's Berry Smoothie: Made with a delicious blend of raspberries, blueberries, pomegranate and nonfat yogurt.

Lone-Lands Campfire Cookie Milk Shake: A thick hand-dipped milk shake with a delicious blend of premium vanilla ice cream and s'mores cookie pieces topped with a dollop of whipped cream. Served with a little extra in the tin.

*promote

Cheers for the promote!

*blocked

This is going to be sensational!

So here's my *rough* mockup of something that I think could work...

http://i.imgur.com/85T5i.jpg

Mini-thumbnails would be displayed for all currently active promotes (upto the sensible limit of 10). Clicking on the mini-thumbnails would make the area above swap to that video's larger thumb and details, and as you can see there is a 'tab' to highlight which mini-thumb you currently have selected.

Maybe the 'tab' could automatically cycle through the promoted videos until the user interacts with it?

The mini-thumb bar could not appear at all if only 1 video is currently promoted.

Maybe the other 9 unselected mini-thumbs could be darker to help highlight the selected one? (bit of javascript magic maybe, I dunno?)

Maybe hovering over a mini-thumb will instantly make it selected and the larger top part change to it, so you could scroll through them by simply hovering your mouse over them?

Maybe hovering over a mini-thumb, could bring up a small mouse-tip that has the title of the video...

Anyway, just ideas, and another possible implementation to discuss. The key to this one is that promoted videos are all visible... no wasted power points. And also, a fixed amount of real estate dedicated to promoted videos.

I agree with @eric3579, in that hiding promoted items in a drop down menu would kill the promote system.

I also agree with @dag in that it's important to not overload random visitors with the promoted sifts of a few.

I liked the old promote system, but I also hated it. I liked it when there were just one or two active promotes (better exposure), but hated it when it went to 9-10 promotes (your video got lost amongst the others AND the promoted videos then took up a huge amount of the front page = ugh).

What needs to remain is the exposure of a promoted video (to some degree), the value of spending that power point (i.e. not being "wasted" if three other videos are promoted straight after), and that it remains attractive to want to promote stuff to spend your power points (rather than hoard them).

The issue I have with both new systems is that they can hide your promoted videos and therefore don't represent good value for your power point.

I have an idea for a way to present promoted videos that I'll try and mock up in photoshop tonight. It should take up less real estate than the new version, while also keeping some exposure for all the currently active promotes. Hopefully it'll provide another direction to discuss at the very least...

I still believe you should be able to see all currently promoted videos at the same time in some form. For example, as a row of mini-thumbs below for example.

At the very least it should say how many promoted videos there are "1 of 5" etc.

There's room for improvement. The important thing is to give people their moneys worth for their spent power point.

Power point gifting. The smarter looking comment boxes. High quality thumbnails.

Sorry, but trekkies are just too nerdy for me. Star Wars is more acceptable... at least it was before episodes 1, 2 and 3.

I'd be happy with everything becoming more expensive to keep the number of promotes and qualities in check. So that promotes and qualities become 2 power points (self-promoting, could be 3). That way you have to "earn" the right to promote by submitting something successful to the sift first (rather than relying on recharge points).

zomgcongrats

I do like me some *quality thumbnails

*promote

I currently have 46 powerpoints, what are my rights? :-)