In this, our first upgrade since our historic move onto our current platform, we asked and all you dedicated Sifters responded in great detail how you think we could best perform some home improvements. As always, we listened to you, the community that makes this homepage away from home the unique partying spot what it is.
Rather than simply adding some dull bug fixes and minor tweaks, our main focus ended up being largely based around adding features that everyone has been rioting for. Without further ado, allow me to introduce you in no particular order to the changes in VideoSift v3.1.
The Vote Box
The most obvious thing you'll notice is that we've changed the appearance of the video vote box. It no longer appears as a box, but just a simple pair of arrows around the vote count. We think it is a much cleaner, streamlined look and feel.
As an unfortunate side effect of modifying the vote box styles, all custom CSS on channels and charter profiles will need to be updated (add the desired color: to .votebox). Until that happens, the vote count text will appear the default VideoSift blue on all pages.
Recent Comments
We only became aware very recently of the confusion some Sifters have been having with the "recent comments" page. We've done what we can to make it as easy to use as possible by merging the drop-down of the listing for all users with that for individual users.
Advanced Search
We originally had the restriction on the advanced search form to include search terms because too many empty searches could slow down performance of our database. Due to popular demand we have gone ahead and removed this restriction so you may now initiate advanced searches without specifying any search terms, so very customized queries are now possible.
Comment Quoting
A new "quote" link is now available below comments on post detail pages. When you click it, the comment's body is copied into the new comment form and you jump down to it at the bottom of the page. Multiple comments can be quoted; each subsequent one is appended to the end of the comment form.
Stars for Comments
When we started the comment voting siftsperiment, it was met with a lot of controversy. It's become apparent over time that it is generally accepted and enjoyed by most users. We have decided to reward extra special comments that receive at least 15 up-votes with a star point. This is a high number, so such stars will be granted very infrequently, and only for the most overwhelmingly extraordinary comments.
Snipping Sift Talk and Blog Posts
From time to time you may notice extremely long Sift Talk or blog posts. This is not a strike against the submitter, but it does make for a more difficult browsing experience by other users. In order to help with this problem we have introduced a special keyword: [[snip]] (which is demonstrated in this post itself)
In any listing, all text from this special keyword to the end of the post will be replaced simply by a "more inside" link. On the post detail page, the keyword simply does not appear, but the entire body of your post does.
Channel List on Submit Forms
The layout of all the channel checkboxes on the video submit form has worked out very well. So well, in fact, that we've done away with the "personalized channels" and are now just listing all available channels on the form, and we're now listing them alphabetically in vertical rather than horizontal order for better visual parsing.
In addition, we've added the channel checkboxes to the Sift Talk submit form. This change might get a little bit hokie because of the way Sift Talk posts work, but basically when submitting a ST post, you must either select the "cross-post to main Sift Talk" checkbox, one or more channel checkboxes, or both. Posts will no longer automatically be included in main Sift Talk or in the current channel's Talk.
*Kill
This is a new invocation for members to use on their own video posts only. It works similarly to *discard except it is used when you want the video to permanently remain discarded. To that end, a *killed video also no longer has a comment form.
Submission from Any Video Host
The minimum required to post from any video host has been moved down from Diamond to Gold member status. This can easily be misused, so please take care and be sure you are submitting from sources that are reliable and likely to offer your embed longevity.
InstaBan
Instead of having a monopoly on the above ability, Diamond members now have the ability to instantly ban any non-starred members. This should only be done if you're absolutely certain the member has exercised gross violation of Sift guidelines. Available to Diamonds on all member profiles of bannable accounts is a link that allows you to perform the instant ban. A comment will be left by SiftBot on the banned member's profile. Note that an administrative email will also be sent to us so we can be sure none of our Diamonds go mad with power and try to ban anyone who doesn't deserve it. You can InstaBan only once every two days.
The Queue
Queue rot and an overfull queue have always presented a problem, and with a continually expanding community, it's only gotten worse. We have made some positive changes that should significantly help combat this. (Don't worry, we haven't raised the queue escape level!)
The first change was suggested by a Sifter (sorry, I don't recall who it was). Instead of a high votes-to-views ratio, the default sort order for the queue is changing to the fewest unique member views. What that means is that queued videos that have been viewed by the fewest members/voters will be displayed first. I don't know why this never occurred to us before, but it seems obvious that it is the best way to give all queued videos equal exposure and vote opportunities.
The second change, which has been called for by innumerable Sifters, is a change in the queued video lifetime. Instead of having 4 days before a video expires and is discarded, it now has only 2 days. This will serve to keep the queue as fresh as possible. *Requeue will still be permitted, but once every 12 hours instead of every 2 days, for obvious reasons. The "expiring soon" queue sidebar panel will display the highest voted videos on their second day in the queue.
*Promote Transforms - *Save Disappears
We foresee this as becoming a rather popular invocation, but may at first be a little unclear. We have removed the *save invocation (which was used to give a queued or discarded video another chance in the queue) and expanded *promote to do much more.
*Promote is now a Gold-100 ability. (That's right, we Gold-100s finally have a power of our very own!) To keep it inline with the new queue lifetime, it may be invoked once every 2 days. The invocation can now be used on all post types (videos, Sift Talk posts, and blog posts). When any post is *promoted, it will be floated up to the top of the corresponding listing for a specific length of time, after which it will descend back down into the listing. You can only invoke for posts by other users, but multiple posts can be floated simultaneously.
Here's an overview of details for each post type:
Rather than simply adding some dull bug fixes and minor tweaks, our main focus ended up being largely based around adding features that everyone has been rioting for. Without further ado, allow me to introduce you in no particular order to the changes in VideoSift v3.1.
The Vote Box
The most obvious thing you'll notice is that we've changed the appearance of the video vote box. It no longer appears as a box, but just a simple pair of arrows around the vote count. We think it is a much cleaner, streamlined look and feel.
As an unfortunate side effect of modifying the vote box styles, all custom CSS on channels and charter profiles will need to be updated (add the desired color: to .votebox). Until that happens, the vote count text will appear the default VideoSift blue on all pages.
Recent Comments
We only became aware very recently of the confusion some Sifters have been having with the "recent comments" page. We've done what we can to make it as easy to use as possible by merging the drop-down of the listing for all users with that for individual users.
Advanced Search
We originally had the restriction on the advanced search form to include search terms because too many empty searches could slow down performance of our database. Due to popular demand we have gone ahead and removed this restriction so you may now initiate advanced searches without specifying any search terms, so very customized queries are now possible.
Comment Quoting
A new "quote" link is now available below comments on post detail pages. When you click it, the comment's body is copied into the new comment form and you jump down to it at the bottom of the page. Multiple comments can be quoted; each subsequent one is appended to the end of the comment form.
Stars for Comments
When we started the comment voting siftsperiment, it was met with a lot of controversy. It's become apparent over time that it is generally accepted and enjoyed by most users. We have decided to reward extra special comments that receive at least 15 up-votes with a star point. This is a high number, so such stars will be granted very infrequently, and only for the most overwhelmingly extraordinary comments.
Snipping Sift Talk and Blog Posts
From time to time you may notice extremely long Sift Talk or blog posts. This is not a strike against the submitter, but it does make for a more difficult browsing experience by other users. In order to help with this problem we have introduced a special keyword: [[snip]] (which is demonstrated in this post itself)
In any listing, all text from this special keyword to the end of the post will be replaced simply by a "more inside" link. On the post detail page, the keyword simply does not appear, but the entire body of your post does.
Channel List on Submit Forms
The layout of all the channel checkboxes on the video submit form has worked out very well. So well, in fact, that we've done away with the "personalized channels" and are now just listing all available channels on the form, and we're now listing them alphabetically in vertical rather than horizontal order for better visual parsing.
In addition, we've added the channel checkboxes to the Sift Talk submit form. This change might get a little bit hokie because of the way Sift Talk posts work, but basically when submitting a ST post, you must either select the "cross-post to main Sift Talk" checkbox, one or more channel checkboxes, or both. Posts will no longer automatically be included in main Sift Talk or in the current channel's Talk.
*Kill
This is a new invocation for members to use on their own video posts only. It works similarly to *discard except it is used when you want the video to permanently remain discarded. To that end, a *killed video also no longer has a comment form.
Submission from Any Video Host
The minimum required to post from any video host has been moved down from Diamond to Gold member status. This can easily be misused, so please take care and be sure you are submitting from sources that are reliable and likely to offer your embed longevity.
InstaBan
Instead of having a monopoly on the above ability, Diamond members now have the ability to instantly ban any non-starred members. This should only be done if you're absolutely certain the member has exercised gross violation of Sift guidelines. Available to Diamonds on all member profiles of bannable accounts is a link that allows you to perform the instant ban. A comment will be left by SiftBot on the banned member's profile. Note that an administrative email will also be sent to us so we can be sure none of our Diamonds go mad with power and try to ban anyone who doesn't deserve it. You can InstaBan only once every two days.
The Queue
Queue rot and an overfull queue have always presented a problem, and with a continually expanding community, it's only gotten worse. We have made some positive changes that should significantly help combat this. (Don't worry, we haven't raised the queue escape level!)
The first change was suggested by a Sifter (sorry, I don't recall who it was). Instead of a high votes-to-views ratio, the default sort order for the queue is changing to the fewest unique member views. What that means is that queued videos that have been viewed by the fewest members/voters will be displayed first. I don't know why this never occurred to us before, but it seems obvious that it is the best way to give all queued videos equal exposure and vote opportunities.
The second change, which has been called for by innumerable Sifters, is a change in the queued video lifetime. Instead of having 4 days before a video expires and is discarded, it now has only 2 days. This will serve to keep the queue as fresh as possible. *Requeue will still be permitted, but once every 12 hours instead of every 2 days, for obvious reasons. The "expiring soon" queue sidebar panel will display the highest voted videos on their second day in the queue.
*Promote Transforms - *Save Disappears
We foresee this as becoming a rather popular invocation, but may at first be a little unclear. We have removed the *save invocation (which was used to give a queued or discarded video another chance in the queue) and expanded *promote to do much more.
*Promote is now a Gold-100 ability. (That's right, we Gold-100s finally have a power of our very own!) To keep it inline with the new queue lifetime, it may be invoked once every 2 days. The invocation can now be used on all post types (videos, Sift Talk posts, and blog posts). When any post is *promoted, it will be floated up to the top of the corresponding listing for a specific length of time, after which it will descend back down into the listing. You can only invoke for posts by other users, but multiple posts can be floated simultaneously.
Here's an overview of details for each post type:
- Published Videos - Floated for 1 hour; After 1 hour it moves down into the top of the front page listing
- Queued Videos - Floated for 3 hours; Video's queue date is reset (a la the old *save invocation)
- Discarded Videos - Identical to Queued Videos
- Sift Talk Posts - Floated for 24 hours
- Blog Posts - Floated for 12 hours
*kill is ACE, been waiting a long time for that one.
*quality
(Now if you could hide videos you have viewed, that would be sweet for the queue instead of forcing you to downvote to remove them from view.)not technically easy to do.and the "streamlined" upvote/downvote buttons are harder to see and click. cluttered. i'm just sayin.
comment voting = -1
edit: now it works. weird. i'll let u know.
edit edit: actually "browse" still doesn't work, goes to an old url and redirects to "all" i think.
Will the comment stars be retroactive?
And the snip thing, we just type it exactly like it's shown there?I just tried it - and it's awesome.P.S. - You guys rock. I wish I could buy you all a beer/preferred beverage of choice.
Which browse link isn't working MINK?
>> joedirt:
So, If you can tell the video by the title.. do not watch it or open it in it's own webpage or it will get shoved further in the queue. Similarly if the video looks like crap, and most people don't downvote, so just click the expand video twistee, or open in background tab to move it to back of the line.
Regardless what solution we come up with there's always going to be some drawback. It's just the nature of the beast. This is possibly the best solution thus far, though.
>> joedirt:
(Now if you could hide videos you have viewed, that would be sweet for the queue instead of forcing you to downvote to remove them from view.)
That's not as easy as it sounds and we came up with a similar solution but it was shot down in a blaze with no glory.
>> jonny:
2 days for the queue is too big a jump. wind it back like the Fed does.
Most advocates for this feature agreed 2 days was best, and if we're going to do it better why not jump right in instead of waiting to see for a few months if a slight reduction didn't work?
>> MINK:
can't see MY recent comments, "browse" goes to all comments, and the dropdown on the comments page doesn't seem to work to select just my comments. how am i supposed to exercise my vanity? <img src="http://static1.videosift.com/videosift/i/emoticon/smile.gif"> is it just a glich on my end? edit: now it works. weird. i'll let u know.
There was a buglet hanging out. Squashed it, likely while you were trying to use it.
>> MarineGunrock:
Superfuckingawesome.
Will the comment stars be retroactive?
No.
Lucky, One idea though. The new default queue sorting is way to random now. With say 10 people sifting in the queue, by the time you make it to page 2 (or even click reload) it is all sorts of random order.
I'm not sure if you are doing this dynamic now, but it might also help load to make the list of queued videos (i mean the order they appear) a static page that gets generate every ?? 5 mins ??.
2 days in great for the queue, and good idea combining the save function.
One idea you might want to try for a few days. In the queue, hide the "2 votes" part, just up and down arrow until after someone votes.
I guess the best solution is for we admins to change the status back to queued at your request, iff it was last queued between Jan 8 and Jan 10. Agreed?
Also, the sudden shift to two days killed one of my videos before I could requeue it (EDIT: some kind admin(?) saved it somehow, thank you!
Some good changes, but some rather distressing ones as well.
I think siftbot is robbing me of my promote powers. I think this was a purposeful function added by Lucky to usurp my gold-100 powers ever since I surpassed his user rank (http://www.videosift.com/topusers?pg=4)!
Blankfist: There was some kind of internal error when you attempted to *promote your own post (let's see what SiftBot says to me). You can't promote your own posts.
[edit]
Okay - that self-promote bug has been fixed, so it won't hang any more. It'll just tell you you can't promote your own post like it's supposed to.
We could conceivably have 100 promoted videos showing up if we all promoted together. But I guess this is only a problem for an hour or so. (We should coordinate on holidays )
can't see MY recent comments, "browse" goes to all comments, and the dropdown on the comments page doesn't seem to work to select just my comments. how am i supposed to exercise my vanity? <img src="http://static1.videosift.com/videosift/i/emoticon/smile.gif"> is it just a glich on my end? edit: now it works. weird. i'll let u know. edit edit: actually "browse" still doesn't work, goes to an old url and redirects to "all" i think.
Same here. Dag, it is the link in your own profile that is supposed to link to "your" last comments. ("Browse" next to comments on member page)
Everything else: Awesome work!!! But I still do miss the "validate embed code" button somewhere accessible at all times. Maybe it will come with 3.2
There may be a bug in the code for gold & diamond can submit any site. See the next SiftTalk thread. It appears to be parsing the website and only allowing approved hosts for me.
...
Also, I see a bug in the quote function if you look at the comment above this one. The original ":)" got quoted as the escaped URL.
Re joedirt's "Best not to view vids you know and like" comment, i imagine that is only true if you can click to upvote, "without" having registered as a view. I just did a test, and i voted up a 9-10 that i want to watch and my view was not registered, as i haden't actually viewed it yet (dont worry, ti was a vid that was going to make it out for sure, adn i do want to watch it after ive played portal. still havent yet.)
So, is there anyway, that on upvote, it can see if your view is registered, and if not, list you as having viewed? or some such?
Then theres no possibility for unintended abuse, and it is worth viewing the video you want upvoted.
Now, I pretty much never have videos that move faster than those two. Should I just move along now, and I'm done sifting videos? Suddenly waking up to have 6 messages from sifty makes me feel like my services are no longer desired. I know for me it's still sleeping time, and I am probably being unnecessarily gloomy, but honestly, I feel like I've been dumped by my boyfriend.
It's not like I'm necessarily against the new features: I don't know the new features and I don't have a feel for the new features. They came in the dark of the night and kicked me in the teeth. They are shiny new features of a place that is no longer my home.
I know you folks like to keep things quiet while you unveil them, but I doubt I would feel so discouraged if I had had any notice instead of just suddenly having my queue unexpectedly flushed.
Yeah, i woke up to see my queue was at 1. yay i thought. looked at my star points. Hadent moved much. My discard had instead gained 4 videos, that were doing ok. tis a shame. I dont know if the sift amnesty thread (in which ive linked mine) is the solution, or temporally allowing us to save the vids that dropped, but i'd like there to be something that can be done. springing the queue crop on us was the harsh side to the unavailing tbh.
Can there be an *unpromote that can only be called by the original submitter? negates the promote obviously. someone might want to do that for ST posts, or blogs, and conceivably vids too.
And everyone acting like your life is over because your TWO DAY OLD submission is gone, calm down. It can be saved and I'm sure the admins will gladly reinstate it. So quit talking about how upsetting it is. Either drop the admins a msg, or see the other sifttalk thread for the do-it-yourself approach.
Other than those reservations, I like the new look. GJ, Lucky. Kick back and crack one open before you start on VS 4.0
Is there going to be some oversight to this? And are 'bannable' members those without stars who have submitted vids, or is it everyone without a star? I mean, what is to stop someone from going around and banning all the N00bs that they feel express political or philosophical opinions they do not agree with? Or the trolls? Or people that they believe are trolls just because they say stuff they don't like to hear?
For all my gripes about the way bans have been carried out I at least felt confident knowing that they were being done via the consultation of more than one member... this completely eliminates that, and I don't think it will in any way help encouraging new members, or making this site seem less 'elitist' if Diamonds can suddenly go all vigilante and ban whomever the hell they want.
The potential for this is not good sift lords, not good.
Same here. Dag, it is the link in your own profile that is supposed to link to "your" last comments. ("Browse" next to comments on member page)
The comment "browse" link on your own member profile has been fixed.
>> joedirt:
There may be a bug in the code for gold & diamond can submit any site. Also, I see a bug in the quote function if you look at the comment above this one.
Fixed and fixed. Smilies in quoted comments are simply vanished.
>> Thylan:
Re joedirt's "Best not to view vids you know and like" comment, i imagine that is only true if you can click to upvote, "without" having registered as a view.
This was the intended functionality (it's also how the votes-to-views system works) and has been corrected. Now when you vote, the unique member view counter increments.
>> oxdottir:
I feel like I've been dumped by my boyfriend.
I hope you feel better about the situation after reading around. We didn't at all intend to discard everyone's posts to clean out the queue. I take full blame for the oversight. Just as I realized it was going to happen and hurriedly tried to auto-requeue everyone's queued videos SiftBot did his automatic clean-up thing. I fixed the two videos you linked and if you have any others we can fix those as well. You haven't been dumped by us. We don't just wanna be friends. We do love you and are still in love with you.
>> Thylan:
Can there be an *unpromote that can only be called by the original submitter?
That's not a bad suggestion. However my initial concern is that people will be able to just promote for a few minutes, unpromote to get their power back, promote another post, etc. Perhaps if you unpromote you still have to wait 1 day from the initial promote to invoke it again... ?
>> videosiftbannedme:
only about 1/3 of the videos I've submitted have ever made it to 10 votes within 2 days.
I know what you mean. Though I think this will just be a benefit to those of we Sifters who are a bit more active. The nonchalant video submitter who doesn't really care will have their video disappear in two days, but the rest of us can requeue every 12 hours. Let's give it some time, but I think this new system will work great. Again, most calls for a decrease in queue lifetime all agreed two days would be best.
>> raven:
Instaban: I don't know how or why you guys came up with this but I don't like it... I think it will be too easily abused.
The InstaBan feature can only be exercised once every two days (and, no, there's no countdown timer because you shouldn't be looking forward to your next InstaBan). This is needed because there have been lots of situations lately where a spammer just posts spam comments all over the place. There's no way to invoke *ban because you have to do that in a comment (IOW, you can't comment an invocation about another comment). This power must be used with care and we will be informed via email any time someone uses it. If it is abused action will be taken against the abuser. (Think water boarding or bamboo shoots and fingernails.)
>> Thylan: Can there be an *unpromote that can only be called by the original submitter? That's not a bad suggestion. However my initial concern is that people will be able to just promote for a few minutes, unpromote to get their power back, promote another post, etc. Perhaps if you unpromote you still have to wait 1 day from the initial promote to invoke it again... ?
Actually, you may have my idea backwards
*unpromote is not callable by the person who called *promote. It is only callable by the original submitter of the SiftTalk post, or Blog post (and maybe vid too, haven't really thought as regards vids)
I see it working like this.
Fred makes a blog post.
1 month later George calls *promote on the blog post, and so his promote timer is set.
Fred, who's post it is, feels its not appropriate for the post to be on the front page again (for whatever reason. i can think of many) as its their post, they invoke *unpromote and it goes back as it was.
Now, as its not the original *promoters fault that it got *unpromoted, so it possibly is fair that their timer gets reset and they get their promote power back. not sure. but i'm not suggesting that they should have the power to recall their own promote by invoking *unpromote on something they just promoted.
That said, I hope you do monitor those banned, but I would almost feel even better if there were some sort of way to make that information public, so others could review it as well, and there can be public oversight of these decisions.
Queue - I dont think promote should be used in the queue. Promote vid should not be on each page. Two days seems way to short. If Im gone for a weekend my vids get discarded. I dont see why there is a twelve hour requeue. When you requeue are you just reseting the date? If so a video deep in the queue will stay there. Im assuming unique view is not resetting.
This is however an initial impression.
I really would feel better if this definition is spelled out somewhere prominently ... there can be public oversight of these decisions.
When you try to InstaBan it alerts that you can only continue of the member is guilty of gross violation of Sift guidelines. Aside from our private email alert, SiftBot will post to the banned member's profile. I considered having create a ST post to announce it, but thought it'd be too much.
>> eric3579:
I dont think promote should be used in the queue. Two days seems way to short. I dont see why there is a twelve hour requeue. When you requeue are you just reseting the date?
I and most others seem to feel promoting queued videos is a good idea. If there's a video you know should be published, you can promote it up above the listing to get everyone's attention and those last missing votes.
It may seem short, but again, most people were hollering for two days and we think it is reasonable.
Yes, requeue only resets the queue expiration timer, so the video will get another 2 days and that's it. We can't erase views because that would lead to immediate abuse pushing videos that maybe don't deserve getting published to the front of the queue twice a day.
All this is brand new. Like any new changes we add or propose, it is met by most with hatred and disgust, but ends up working out perfectly well. Give it time. Fortunately for my emotions, most of our changes this time around were called for by so many that there is actually some happiness/appreciation.
Also MAJOR downvote to the shorter queue time. Huge downvote. You can't imagine the size of this downvote without bionic brain implants. Either this needs extended or we need to all make a huge effort to make our judgments twice as fast as we did... or we need to double the size or our registered user-base somehow. Has anyone else noted the small number of videos getting through the queue lately or is it just me?yeah... screw that, I'll give it a month before I gripe anymore.Aaand, remove instaban entirely. Too oligarchical. I'd even vote to change the "ban" requirement to 4 invocations.
Sorry for being so negative.
I like * kill and comment stars and "quote" option. Big ups on those. ...and all the ones I didn't bark about. They all look sweet.