I noticed the quick turnaround too, and figured another escape level increase was inevitable.
I like the opportunity for more saves.

Nice balancing act Sift Lords...

I'm mostly loitering in the Queue with the intent of up-voting these days, rather than watching the Front - so I've not noticed the speed of published posts. Will be more difficult for the cult vids now - there's too many near missed Sifts as it is (painful to see SiftBot discard with 1/2 votes to go!) I just hope that more Sifters try to keep up with the ever-moving Queue, and use their saves more often: Playlists should help with suggestions of missed Sifts.

Thanks for the changes and the explanation, but I wonder if there might be a bug in the Queue sidebar. I still have my Cardigans video hovering (like a weiner dog) at 8 votes, and it's not been discarded, but it's not showing up in the sidebar any more, while other videos with fewer votes are in there. Does this just mean my video is about to be discarded anyway?

It's because the side-bar list now only shows Sifts from the last 4 days...your The Cardigans Rule! (again): I Need Some Fine Wine is 4 days 1 hour old...so it's ignored. Maybe SiftBot should include vids slightly older than 4 days in the list...maybe by 23 hours to catch the Sifts posted closer to the daily Cron cull of expired vids.

it's at 9 now (c'mon! just one more!)

...what Benjee said. And SiftBot checks only once in a while, so it would have been discarded any second, but I just tossed in #10 to pop it out of the queue.

benjee: Ahh. And D'oh! I guess there is that tiny bit of no man's land where a damn near ripe queued video wouldn't make it to the sidebar.

(And I just got buzzed that it was published -- woo-hoo! Thanks, firefly and lucky. And I swear I didn't come here just to whine and get my video pushed to the front page. I really was confused about the gap.)

I really was confused about the gap.
And validly so. Glad to help it escape the queue. Only watched half but looks/sounds good.

You know how we have graduated-queue-expiry? 2 votes in 24 hours, 3 votes in 48?

With the recent increase to a 10-vote for escape limit, should we perhaps extend the queue expiry-time by a day or so for vids with 8 or 9 votes?

Perhaps this would be overkill given the reduction in save-regeneration-time (BTW, YAY!!!, thanks for doing that!)?

I'm just proposing that idea for discussion rather than immediate implementation... wonder how that sounds to you?

I second Krupo's idea...

I third it...will be a relief for those near-misses and eases the 10 vote change in gently.

I fourth it.

implement.

50!!!! i've increased my viewing pleasure to 50!!!!!! woot!

and no offense, gentlemen ... but if a vidoe (per westy) has only garnered 8/9 votes during its 4 day stint at the sift and doesn't make it to the front page ... so be it! we are supposed to be sifting the best vids out there ... not sifting so this and that one will vote for me because i voted for them, or i will mention my vid, or ask someone to vote etc, etc ... lobbying for votes is not what this site is about. i love the system that dag developed ... and it works! does that make sense.

if a vid doesn't make it ... it doesn't make it ... *shrugs* such is life!

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50? You must have quite a bit of memory. My browser gets all choppy at 50 a page. I think I'll set it to 30.

30? 50??? Wow. I guess I'll be one of the few (or the only one) who used this new feature to decrease the listing size. I'm down to 5.

As much as I understand Krupo's proposition and the 2nd and 3rd and 4th and 5th, I tend to agree with LadyBug. If a video is teetering on the edge, I don't think we should waste our breath blowing to make it tip. If it didn't get what it needed to succeed after four solid days, it's probably for a reason. But that's just my opinion. Anyone else agree?

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I concur Lucky. I prefer to err on the side of inaction.

silly dag ... women have LOTS of memory!!! *wink*

I am with Dag, Bug, and Lucky on this one.

Four days is plenty of time and it has the effect of encouraging gold stars to freely use the saves. Besides, it can't all be joy in the Sift. Nothing is more cathartic than the heartache and bitter, bitter tears (FN: INXS) that come from a post that expires in need of a single vote.

If you get 10 votes within 4 days, then you have sifted a quality video. Otherwise, you just have a smelly vidoe.

"Nothing is more cathartic than the heartache and bitter, bitter tears"

Does such misery and cynicism come with age? Dear God I better OD soon!

Thanks for the changes to the front page, 10 wasn't quite a enough. I also like many of the changes you guys/gals are making such as the non-destructive login which is awesome.

Well my counter-argument in favour of the proposed day-5 extension is that the Sift used to run on a 7-day queue system, IIRC. Giving a clip another 20-odd hours to make it out, let's say even if we just limit it to a 9-vote'r, shouldn't drastically alter the balance since once a vid gets to "escape-1" votes (i.e., 9), it's probably about to get nudged out anyway.

The real contention, I argue, is whether it would be logical/fair/smart to extend the proposed extension to 8-vote vids, as there's plenty of potential for those to either keep moving or stall.

as long as we can get the queue to actually be looked at. careful with the queue escape level, because eventually the number of votes required to pass to the front is going to exceed the number of users that look at the queue.

not a big deal, but here's two reasons why the top 15 list should be put back to 7 days:

#1:
having the top 15 list last the same 4 days as the queue means that videos that escape the queue on the 3rd or 4th day and suddenly get a bunch of votes on the front page have no chance of making the top 15 list for more than a couple of hours.

example: How to build a bass with balloons

published 4 days 22 hours 19 minutes ago, has 25 votes. it would be #12 on the top 15 right now under the old system. but it took a couple days to escape the queue, so it never made the list, or at least not except very briefly. it's a great find, but we missed it in the queue and would have missed it entirely except that we spent half the morning watching videos today.

#2:
there seem to be a lot of casual visitors who only check the site once a week or so. a 7-day top 15 list makes it less likely they'll miss a really popular video.

example: Effects Of Drugs And Alcohol On Spider Webs

published 4 days 5 hours 31 minutes ago, has 79 votes and is the top 100 ever on the site already. went to #1 right away and would likely have stayed there all week under the old system. but if someone only comes to videosift this weekend or early next week, it's already nearly impossible to find:
-it's not in the top 15 (too old)
-it's already on the *19th* page from the front
-it's not on the default page for "top videos" (because that got changed to 24 hours)

making the top 15 list is pretty much a second level of graduation for videos here
( queue --> front page --> top 15 )
and almost always guarantees piles of votes from unstarred members (mostly casual lurkers, probably).

if you want to have more flow through the list, don't shorten the time period, lengthen the list. make it a top 20, or top 25.

Why not leave the length of the TOP 15 up to the user to default? I like the old system because as PM said it would apply for casual users more. But for myself I like the 4 days thing because honestly this is like cocaine (I expect to sue Dag for withdrawal effects if they arise).

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As a compromise, perhaps we need to have the top 15 start from 4 days of being published as opposed to to 4 days of posting.

I'm an addict too - can I join your your class action? To paraphrase Borat, - I fully support my community in sueing that geek.

4 days from publishing would do it, yeah, though once-a-week visitors still miss hugely popular videos that way. but right now, it doesn't look like the exact time of publication is being tagged to each video, just the order. tying the top 15 list to publication time would also mean there'd have to be some way to exclude promoted videos (that are essentially being re-inserted in the publication order, without changing the submission time).

there's no need to let users set their own length of list in the sidebar. hardcore addicts like us know you can always go ( top videos tab --> this week ) to find out what's bubbling under the top list. the sidebar list is way more important to casual visitors, as you can tell whenever one of your videos makes the list for a few days and picks up votes from all sorts of people you've never heard of.

+1 for everything pm said.

4 day top 15 didn't sound right to me and you explained why perfectly

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We silently adjusted this a couple of days ago to count top 15 from front page publication date as opposed to post date. In some cases this will mean that videos might even linger longer in the top 15 than before.