VideoSift

VideoSift has a policy of "no self-links", which means contributing videos that the VideoSift user ("Sifter") created themselves. In addition to functioning as a means to prevent astroturfing, it allows for an extra step of "sifting" - a third party must first approve of the video by selecting it for submission before the original creator can cast a vote for it.

In response to Sifters' desire to showcase their own videos, occasional Siftoffs have been held, with the first in May 2006. Videos in the Siftoff are uploaded to a separate queue where users have a month to decide, through the normal voting mechanisms, which video of this subset group is most worthy. The siftoff has since been removed again.

The ability to permanently ban members who self-link is given to those who have gained "gold star" status within the VideoSift community. Two users must both invoke the *ban command, which will make the system ban the offending member. This is often used for those who spam, or self-link videos to the site and has been known to be used swiftly and effectively by senior members of VideoSift.[4]

In January 2008 an instaban feature was introduced, that allows users with diamond level membership to instantly ban a probationary member without confirmation from another user.[5]

One of the unique aspects of the VideoSift community is that the volunteer members receive de facto administrator powers with long term commitment to the website. After accumulating 50 star points, members gain such abilities as discarding posts in violation of guidelines or flagging videos NSFW.[4][6]

The ability to "downvote" a video was introduced in June 2006,[7] allowing the Sifter with a moderate seniority level - those with a bronze star meaning 25 star points.[4][6] , to police against videos they consider unworthy or unappealing. Downvoting met with some controversy as users adjusted to the phenomenon, and set informal guidelines on usage.[4][6]

Members help to shape and mold the future of VideoSift by suggesting new feature requests and existing feature changes. Often streamlining the site and making it very versatile as well as retaining a simple interface.

For compatibility reasons VideoSift accepts only videos in the Flash format, and only from the following websites: YouTube, Break.com, Revver, Vimeo, MetaCafe, Google Video, iFilm, Myspace, Onion, VideoJug, Yahoo, Dailymotion, LiveLeak, VSocial, Fora.tv and Grouper.

Comedy Central submissions were banned after Comedy Central's decision to block non US-based viewers for their content (region blocking), but the ban was reversed and is under an ongoing discussion. Members who have achieved a 'gold' status can submit other flash based video content such as collegehumor or adultswim videos

At heart, VideoSift is a video organization site. Videos are organized by their tags and channels, which an inputted but the submitting user and can be changed and/or amended by senior users of the site. Channels are unlike many other sites, not generated in advance, but created by users when they reach a certain level of membership, diamond or more, which is then sent to the administrators, evaluated and approved/rejected as the case may be. Some channel suggestions have been considered too close to other channels, such as tech, which was too deemed close to science and geek.

As of September 2010 the following 98 channels are available: Animation, Art, Actionpack, Asia, Anatomy, Blues, Books, Bravo, British, Brain, Comedy, Cute, Canada, Catsanddogs, Celtic, Cinema, Comics, Commercial, Conspiracy, Controversy, Cult, Cooking, Downunder, Dance, Dark, Documentaries, Drugs, Debunked, Election08, Electronica, Eia, Equality, Eco, Engineering, Fail, Femme, Fire, Future,F ear, Gay, Geek, Grindhouse, Horrorshow, Happy, Hiphop, Howto, Humanitarian, Health, History, Islam, Jazz, Kids, Latenight, Law, Livemusic, Love, Lies, Music, Mystery, Military, Metal, Money, Magic, Meme, Nature, News, Obscure, Politics, Parody, Philosophy, Religion, Rocknroll, Sexuality, Scifi, Science, Shortfilms, Sports, Standup, Spacy, Teens, Timeshift, Talks, Terrible, Travel, Videogames, Vintage, Viral, Worldaffairs, Waronterror, Woohoo, Wilhelm, Water, Wtf, Wheels, Wildwestshow, Wings, 1sttube and 80s.[9]

As soon as a video receives the required number of votes it is published to the front page, which is arranged in reverse chronological order. Videos can be further filtered by the user according to most votes in a year, month, week, 24 hours and all time.

With the launch of VideoSift 2.2 'channels' were added to browse by and filter out videos by their respective categories.[10] Currently these are: Animation, Art, Comedy, Cute, Geek, Music, Nature, Politics, Vintage, and Viral. A video may be in as many channels as are applicable.

Additionally, VideoSift now allows senior users to create collectives of users to sift even more specific niche videos.

It has been argued that given the growth of the site, the quality of the videos within will inversely decline in quality. The way the voting system works, a video with more votes is considered of higher quality than one with fewer votes, thus equating quality with popularity. Like Wikipedia, there are many high-level users, who work to uphold the quality and integrity of the site, so that things like astroturfing and spam are kept to a minimum. Users are allowed to have their own agendas, political or otherwise, so for an outside viewer it may appear that the site is a launchpad for these opinions, when in fact the discussion forum "Sift Talk" debates these things.