I like it.

So, if I promote a video, and 4 others are promoted within the next 15 minutes, the one I promoted is just pushed out of the list? Let the promotion wars begin.

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

Yes there is the potential for that. It should mean that posts will cycle through the promoted area a bit quicker during peak times.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to be a wet blanket. I definitely do like the improved layout for it. It was incredibly annoying to have 7 or 8 vids promoted at the top of the queue when trying to go through the whole thing. I had a thought to propose a change to that a few weeks ago, but never developed the idea enough. Something along the lines of hiding promoted vids just like the rest of the queue once you've seen them (assuming you have that option turned on), or maybe the ability to collapse the entire panel.

Let's see how it works out. Who knows, maybe the community will develop an unwritten code of honor that you shouldn't promote something if it will knock something else out that's only been up for less than an hour. But I wouldn't count on it.

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

^that's what I was thinking - an unwritten rule might come out of this.

Dag.. I think the coding might be too complex, but it might be possible to queue up all the promotes and let them all get their full time "in the box".

So first four in stay and it's one in, one out after that if there is a lot of promotes. I often see times with nothing promoted, there probably is just a rush hour issue.

Never thought it was a problem myself. With the new look the value of the promote is slightly diminished particularly as you have to open a new page to view the video.

I would have preferred if one video at a time enjoyed a promote and the other promoted videos got queued. Thus each would have their time in the sun.

Thinking more about this I'm not sure I like it at all. We're not going to know if a promoted video is quickly bumped off the list. So any given promote could be wasted. I don't think an "unwritten" rule is going to emerge or work particularly well. One promote at a time would be my preference.

I don't like it. I need as much info as I can get before I click on a video and more often than not this means reading the tags, channels - everything. Especially considering the cases with dubious titles (when you can't tell what it's about by reading JUST the title). I strongly disagree with the idea that promoted videos should have less details displayed than the ones in the standard queue view.

But hey - nobody promotes my videos anyway, so it's not like I have a stake in this. I'll go cry in the corner now, if you don't mind.
*goes to cry in the corner*

^ I agree with EDD on this one. Channels and number of votes would be nice to have displayed.

One question, why show the promoted videos in every single page you go to? If I'm going through the queue for example, I have to see the promoted videos again and again. They should just be displayed in the first/front page of the unsifted and sifted sections in my opinion.

"There is a maximum of one row with 4 promoted videos in it. The latest promoted videos will be selected for display."

Is it possible to list them all but just adding a 'next page' link? Kind of how you have the top right section that shows the top rated comments, latest siftalks etc, as you click on the 'Next Panel' button. That way the videos can be big enough to show more info, you wont clog the page like before, and promoted videos wont have to 'compete'.

just giving feedback, that's all.

>> They should just be displayed in the first/front page of the unsifted and sifted sections

Done.

If you need tags and description to decide to watch a promoted video or not.... um, what's the saying... you're doin' it wrong.

I like the condensed look, it makes sense.

I don't care for it either. Too much information has been stripped away for me to want to view the promoted videos. I always look at tags, channels, and descriptions before I decide to view a video. Otherwise I feel like I'm going to waste my time. I believe it will undermine the power of the * promote.

Sorry, but I just think it's a bad idea. I like Deano's idea better. Maybe allow a maximum of 2 or 3 promoted videos to be shown at once. The rest can either drop into a * promote queue of sorts, or siftbot could give a message saying "Sorry, but the maximum allotted amount of promoted videos are currently being displayed. Please try again later." Or something like that.

ack i'm sorry but i'm in the no-likey camp too. i keep thinking they're ads and zipping straight past them.

Poor Videoshift, those fixes just never quite seem to be right the first time.

Can we add the votes and info. for those promoted videos on home page? I can't remember if I have seen them or not! I'm old.

After having reviwed the evidence, let me the first (last) to say: This fuckin sucks!

I'm sorry Lucky, nice try and all but this is possibly the worst new feature ever. Promoted vids are supposed to get attention and with this they get ignored. Nothing more to say really.

I'm not sure it's working as intended either. I seem to forget and gloss over the promoted videos now, which is a shame.

I'm going to *sticky this because I think we need more feedback on it.

kronosposeidon cannot sticky this post because kronosposeidon does not have enough Power Points. (You can always purchase more Power Points.)

^Dammit. The sticky feature is broken again. Watch how I *promote it, and suddenly I will have the power point that siftbot just said I didn't have.

Promoting this Sift Talk post - promote requested by kronosposeidon.

*sticky even if I don't have any points.

ant cannot sticky this post because ant does not have enough Power Points. (You can always purchase more Power Points.)

If you rolled back all the changes except promotes only showing on the first page, it would already be way better than both how it is and how it was.

^I was thinking the same thing. Show the promotes the way the used to be displayed, but only on the first page. Does that sound good?

^Good, then we're all agreed.

>> ^kronosposeidon:
^I was thinking the same thing. Show the promotes the way the used to be displayed, but only on the first page. Does that sound good?


But remember why it was changed in the first place. Videos get promoted one after the other and then they end up forming a 2 mile long page.
_______________________________________________________

Why can't it be something like that panel at the top right of the page? say, it shows 3 promoted videos the old way, and if more than 3 videos are promoted then a 'next page' link appears. Sort of the same way we have that 'Next Panel' link at the upper right.

or maybe a promoted box big enough to show all the information but instead of a vertical list, it becomes an horizontal list, with a slide button or something. Is this difficult to do?

can someone tell me how to upvote mauz's previous comment 10 times, please?

Actually, a paged or scrollable panel is susceptible to the same obliviousness as the current layout really. Unless the user is aware of the widget, it won't do the community any good. A client side scroll bar (embedded frame?) might do the trick to catch the user's eye. But let's try the consensus - roll back to the previous layout only on the first page. When things are getting too annoying again, then make the next small step. But that's the key - small moves Ellie, small moves.

Really strange about the sticky problem. I found why it wasn't working but I don't know how the code got that way... SiftBot must have been mucking around with his own programming... This scares me.

>> ^lucky760:
Really strange about the sticky problem. I found why it wasn't working but I don't know how the code got that way... SiftBot must have been mucking around with his own programming... This scares me.


It's alive. Don't you remember SHODAN, GLaDOS, etc.?

>> ^lucky760:
Really strange about the sticky problem. I found why it wasn't working but I don't know how the code got that way... SiftBot must have been mucking around with his own programming... This scares me.


No one can stop me!

I guess now you know where the revenue was going guys. I'm outta here!

Put me in the 'we need more information' camp...

-

>> ^jonny:
-


I saw your deleted reply:

"Don't vote for that mindless crank! It only gives it more power!!

Listen up bot - you think you've won, you think all is well, but kiss
my digitized ass! I'll see you in /b/!

oh wait..."

zoinks!

Well well, it's siftbot, the abuse of power tool that wasn't funny.

It's lame.

Add me to the list of people that think a full display but on first page only is the way to go here. Promotion just doesn't give enough of a bump for the starpoint cost the way it is now.

Appreciate the attempt, though.

One option - a compressed "promote section" where all the video information that is normally given is listed to the right, but the thumbnail and vertical footprint is much smaller so there's not as much page-1 scrolling even if there are a dozen videos that have currently been promoted.

[edit]
Instead of promoted videos getting "expired" and disappearing from the box, the box will always display the latest 5 promoted videos. So a video will be listed until 5 new subsequent promotes bump it out.

I like this even less. Now a * promote might not even last 2 hours (for published) or 3 hours (for unpublished). That weakens * promotes even more, IMO. I'm losing the incentive to promote any videos these days, honestly. I feel like I won't get my "money's worth" out of them, so to speak.

I'm not trying to be wet blanket, lucky. I just really don't like these new changes to promotes.

>> ^gorillaman:
If you rolled back all the changes except promotes only showing on the first page, it would already be way better than both how it is and how it was.


I second this suggestion. I don't like the new concept at all, for the same reasons kronosposeidon has stated.

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

I'll come clean and say that I was the instigator for this change. I have to say that I really like it. It gives 5 promoted posts in a nice compact position AND in most cases a promoted post will be there for many more hours than before as 5 more promotes have to happen to bump it out.

So while the visibility is slightly less, it's balanced by the fact that a promote has more staying powere.

It's been 3 days now and no promoted post (that I actually saw promoted to the first page) has caught my attention yet. Titles are just not enough for me (and apparently a couple other folks). I guess it seems we won't be rolling back to the way things used to be, so I'll just go back to crying in the corner, shall I?

Hello, hello, hello... any admins out there?

Just look at the videos that get promoted to the front page, they're barely getting any votes no matter how good they are. People don't pay attention to those vids as long as there isn't any information besides the title. The *promote has no meaning anymore and the other people who have commented in this post seem to agree.

Why not scrap the new promote box and limit the number of promotes to 4-5. That way they won't take up too much room.

Promoting this Sift Talk post - promote requested by rasch187.

*quality due to the issue!

ant cannot award a quality point for this Sift Talk post because ant does not have enough Power Points - ignoring quality request by ant. (You can always purchase more Power Points.)

I haven't seen my promotes do very well since the change, and I did a bunch of them just to see how they would do under the new system. None of them got more than a couple of votes. I can see one or two promotes being ineffective (hey, not everyone appreciates my exquisite taste in videos , but I've done at least 10 in the past couple of day and none of them did well.

Promotes suck now.

^KP I tend to agree. I promoted arvana's cat video and it got NO votes. I'm shocked.

Lily's at 17 votes, promoted moments ago. And 1009 views.

I recommend people post the before/after counts for their promotes here for the next few days to see what the actual effect is (or alternatively we could politely ask Lucky to dredge up the stats, but that would probably be a small bitch to code)... coding would probably be the most efficient way to quantify the change - run it for two weeks under this regime, compare to two weeks under old regime, see which system gets more votes. Two weeks reduces the "I'll promote crap" factor as anybody cranky enough to game the system won't be able to break the test too much (hopefully).

Incidentally - I pimped the Lily vid I promoted because I found it cool that the thumbnail shows her on a bike going from left to right. Which, I imagine, will be the order that the thumbnail takes as it "rides" through the five slots.

I do believe some kind of "+" or "maximize vid" option would be helpful, though!

^Not a bad idea, Krupster. I'll try to remember to put the vote tally in my * promote comments. I doubt it well help much, because I only see a few people doing it, and that won't give robust results. But it couldn't hurt.

I'll still do promotes every now and then, but right now I'm also going through old Sift Talk posts and giving necro * quality points where I see fit. At least I know my power points won't be wasted that way.

Again, I'm sorry, dag and lucky. I'm not trying to be an asshole. I just think this new promote system needs to be shitcanned.

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

^Might it be that the pathways in your brain just haven't gotten used to the configuration yet? Not being facetious, this is a real UI phenomenon wherein if you are used to a particular pattern it's difficult for the brain to retrain to the new pattern. Especially for those of us getting on in years. *ahem* OK - now I'm being facetious.

The last video I promoted (Cow Abduction), has been on the front page for over ten hours now, and received three votes. IMO the new style just doesn't seem to be working.

dag - I don't think this is just a case of habituation. The main problem is that the promoted listing doesn't behave the same way as the rest of the listing page. In other words, clicking the thumbnail takes you away from the listing page, instead of opening the video in place. It violates the Principle of Least Surprise.

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

^ I see what you're saying there, and that's a good point.

I would argue though that the "least surprise" would be for it to navigate to another page, as this is the expected behaviour of a hyperlink -- *unless* you are habituated to it doing something else from a previous experience on this particular page, then you would be more surprised.

Losing the meta data and not being able to play the vid straightaway definitely diminish the power of a promote. I would prefer the previous arrangement but put a sensible limit on the number of concurrent videos. Well, that's my final word on this.

http://www.videosift.com/video/Lily-Allen-LDN - 2 votes and 52 views.

It was parked on the front page for a while, but that's a pretty poor conversion.

Now trying it with http://www.videosift.com/video/Monty-Python-Romantic-Film - 28 votes, 1004 views.

I'm playing the "what if the thumbnail is like THIS" card, now. Let's see where it takes us.

Just to report my second promote since the new change got zero votes again.

http://www.videosift.com/video/Opera-you-didnt-know-you-knew-lucia-sextet

It's just inconsistent with the rest of the site. It looks like an ad banner. And since it's laid out like one it's natural to just look past it. So, it's having the opposite effect of promoting a video. Maybe you should change it to *ignore or *neglect or *wasteofpoints

>> ^Krupo:
http://www.videosift.com/video/Lily-Allen-LDN - 2 votes and 52 views.
It was parked on the front page for a while, but that's a pretty poor conversion.
Now trying it with http://www.videosift.com/video/Monty-Python-Romantic-Film - 28 votes, 1004 views.
I'm playing the "what if the thumbnail is like THIS" card, now. Let's see where it takes us.


41 votes, 1362 views.

Okay - conclusion after 2 tries? New promote is SERIOUSLY skewed in favour of videos with ridiculous (i.e. scandalously clad ppl) thumbnails (such as the Python clip above).

We need more info or only the crazy "Notable Thumbnail" type of vids will get much benefit...