Hey, new idea... prolific posters of published videos get rewarded with stars of various levels/ratings. Can we get some sort of "Troll" icon for members who make no attempt to publish videos, yet enjoy the benefits of membership that others must now earn? Yeah, I ain't been here a long time either, but it just seems a little unfair to me. Or howz about some sort of "ignore" feature so that we can make these peeps invisible (or anyone invisible, for that matter)?
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And while I'm a roll... What ever happened to the *PowerVote Idea (One PV = 20 votes (100+ members only ~ Gold Stars get 10 PV, etc.)
:-D
"In Internet terminology, a troll is often someone who comes into an established community such as an online discussion forum, and posts inflammatory, rude, repetitive or offensive messages designed intentionally to annoy or antagonize the existing members or disrupt the flow of discussion, including the personal attack of calling others trolls."
And what are "the benefits of membership that others must now earn?" Currently, they already have to submit a post and have it published (with 2 gold star member votes) before being taken off probation. And then they don't have the ability to downvote til they get a bronze star. There's really nothing wrong with lurking as long as they don't do anything troll-like.
So i'm against the above ideas. i don't see anything wrong with allowing ppl to just comment on videos and stuff even though they don't have stars. Removing the ability to comment without any stars seems kinda antisocial at best.
Powervote is a horrible idea.
What is with the punish lurkers concept? The site is about sifting. You can do that without submitting videos. Some people only submit stuff and never comment, some people vote and never submit, some people (usually wingbats) only post random drive by comments. Such is the nature of the internets.
I'm not worried about the downvotes. I don't think that's really gonna discourage any new members, that they can only upvote. Now you could say the bronze -> gold will take new folks way too long... but the only way around that is make gold based on videos submitted, or comments, or votes, or some combo of those. But those methods can be abused and gamed to cheat the system. in summary, i don't think you'll find very much support for these ideas.
bnsa obviously hasn't been paying attention to POWERVOTE codes hidden in the Videosift people pages. All the 100 stars have it, but we are merely waiting for the second coming of whoever replaces Jake Shimabakuro to abuse it.
however that was just a suggestion. As far as your "superiority nonsense", I disagree (respectfully) that it's not a superiority issue but a encouragement system to get people to post more. Example would be your "diamond" next to your name. Who here wouldn't like to have that? Is that wrong to have a desire to have something that distingishes you from the millions of other people out there? (Or in this case, the 4000 other "equals") Imagine when this site grows to hundreds of thousands? (I.e. Youtube)...
Who will be the voice then? Who will be the "elders of VS?" The ones who helped make the site grow so big?
Just my random thoughts...
There is no such thing as supreriorty here. I see the higher members as moderators, and i don't think VS can get as big as youtube, as youtube is not for the best videos on the web, whereas VS is.
I think that if VideoSift does become very big and popular, it will be known as a status thing. If your video is accepted on VideoSift, then it is seen as a good video.
anyone who has ever posted frequently on any forum can atest to the fact that some people merely post to 'boost' their count and get a star, heart, diamond, etc ... i don't want to see VS comments reduced to nothing but vacuous and/or smiley faced-only comments.
there are times when i have the availability to post a lot more than others (as evidenced by my relatively quick gold star) ... should my VS 'status' be raised due to my comment count given the short duration of time i've been sifting?
i agree with dot ... if people want to post ... they will post! some people are just more chatty than others *blushes* but that's just the nature of the beast. i don't need a physical symbol to distinguish me from others ... i think my avatar and my comments do that just fine!
i can certainly see your point, bsna ...i just don't think it's one that we need to make an issue over. *shrug* but i do understand what you are saying.
I just post videos that get universally ignored.
And I think that we will probably limit commenting of probationary members to their own video thread in the new video queue, which should cut down on trolling. Do you have any particular threads where you feel that somebody is being a troll bnsa? I sort of feel like the new member queue has done a lot to discourage that sort of behavior.
[my comment
is probablyis several hours too old to be funny but I couldn't resist]In all seriousness, I also agree that the goldie system effectively acts as an automatic mechanism to allow people to gain moderator powers and it's nice b/c it's basically based on merit (ability to sift 50 vids) - on other sites, you either have to suck up to the admins, or... well, I think that's the only way you can pull it off at other sites.
The other crucial distinction is the fact that people with moderator skills don't let it go to their heads b/c if they act like jackasses, people may (silently) ignore their vids, so there's a powerful social code to be civil without actually jumping down people's throats (too often, anyway - once in a while things pop up but they generally get resolved within a day if not sooner). Along with that, most people seem to automatically notice that certain things are gauche, such as reviewing people's voting histories and using them to attack others. It's happened a few times, but the person who committs that social faux pas is politely/sternly informed it's considered impolite and civility reigns again. I really should sit down and codify these unwritten rules in case anyone hasn't picked up on them or cares.
Videosift and member behaviour could be a goldmine for psych/sociology students, or many other academics studying media and human nature, IMHO.