How should members most helpfully share videos?

[Bill Ryan]

Dear Friends,

The mods are having an interesting discussion about the proliferation of videos posted on Avalon. We're trying to be as fair and wise as possible, and so I thought that a consultation might be helpful.

My own position (which I think many reading this may recognize) is that personally I'm careful about which (and how many) videos I post, making sure that

• In most cases, I watch them myself fully first
• If I've not watched them myself first, I always say so
• I do my best to offer a summary of
  1. how long they are
  2. when a particularly interesting or relevant segment starts, so that viewers can go straight there and not waste time
  3. I offer at least a short summary of why the video may be interesting
  4. (in some cases) I write quite a detailed summary, often with my own comments added. That takes time, but I feel sure that it's appreciated by some.

My concern is this:

• "I can't keep up any more." The world of Future Shock is already here

So when I wake up in the morning and check the new forum posts, it's not always easy when I see there are 10, 20, 30 or maybe even more videos posted on various threads. There are MANY serious issues happening in the world right now, all at once, and I'm truly concerned about most of them. But I don't have time to watch 25 videos, or even 10, or most days even 5, unless they're short ones and I know they'll be worthwhile.

So what helps me personally is at last a brief summary, and a clear statement of the source (without having a click a link to find out). That helps me decide what to invest my time in.

And I've not even got a family or a full-time job. Those who do will have a far greater time management problem, and I suspect that they just mostly skip over everything, looking for text summary updates on the threads they're interested in.

But I'm only really aware of my own preferences, and those of the other mods (who largely agree with what I'm sharing here). So do please vote on the anonymous poll, where you can choose more than one option if you like.

All comments here are very very welcome, and I can easily add more voting categories if there are any useful ones which I've missed. (I suspect that there are! )

[norman]

Quantity versus aspirational quality

I'm a listener, always have been, always will be. Text, to me, is the big tedium that depresses me the most when people splurge huge amounts of it on my screen. Some of those really big textual posts are impossible to get through. I tip my hat to those who endure them and give up so much of their day to them, I just can't live like that, it bombs my brain to a wasteland.

If I click on something of the multimedia variety, I can usually get a feel for it being in one of 3 main categories quickly. ( I can't do that anywhere near as well with textual content )

1) It's a Talk Jockey

2) It's a rare and valid intellectual

3) It's a Humane and 'spiritually' affirmative therapy I probably need at least one dose of a day. ( there are some rare talk jockies in that category too )

I can be in the mood for any of those but I'm almost completely disinterested in vacuous faithless Talk Jockies by now. For my taste, there's far too much of that. ( From what I can tell from my semi disinterested space, there is some of that with the textual content too ).

From my own beginning here, I regarded this forum as an on line aspirational community, not a fake reality AA(FR) meeting, not a news agency and not, even, a university library project.

[Inversion]

The time investment is a big issue as you stated. It's not practical to invest the whole day into watching videos, so the viewer must be selective. Documenting the points of interest within the video is very helpful. The poster does the initial investment of time and strips it down for the viewer with a summary and time stamps. I sometimes get lazy and don't want to do a complete breakdown or there's only a few bits of notable data.

[Casey Claar]

I am someone who takes in large collections of concepts well. When I come here I take in the basic concepts present in thread titles ( collectively ) and feel for where I might enter. I am aware now of where people are talking and where people are largely presenting video data. Roughly 80% of my attention is given to where people are dialoguing in depth. I appreciate video, but more-so when it is the direct work of someone present here on the board. This is because I am not just looking for more data to process, I am looking to connect with the sources of these data. It was Bill's work, for example, which brought me to this board, and it will be the direct work of those here which keep me here. It is the group I am principally interested in, not the data, the data is secondary. One more point: new active threads are good and fine and all, but there do not need to be copious amounts of them. This board is huge. I could never make my way wholly through it even if new threads stopped altogether right this second. Quality, every time over quantity. I appreciate when people occasionally bump old threads of such quality.

So--

Video to text : for me the ratio best rests at 80% text to 20% video.

In most cases the text should certainly be the focus.

Whole, well thought out paragraphs.

If it is less, most gets lost as noise.


Casey

[DeDukshyn]

The only issues I have with videos are long videos (more than a couple minutes) with no descriptions or timestamps. If one doesn't have the time to write a summary and add timestamps to the important parts, then I don't have time to watch your video.

Starting a thread with just an embedded or linked video and titled something like "I can't believe this!", and no text description should be just completely deleted by the mods IMHO. I find that lazy click-bait approach disrespectful.

Another issue are content reposts from facebook - usually images. The URL has a time limit of something like three days, so those are often useless. The meme thread is just full of those.

[RunningDeer]

This is a general list of what I often include:

• Title of video. (It also helps to find back ups from other formats.)
• Timestamps that link directly to the specific topic/place within it
• Transcribed snippets
• Summary provided by the content maker
• A link to the content maker's account and date of the vid
• Add screen shares/ images of video content
• Written material from other sources
• Menu of topics with time stamps
• The length of the video
• Post vids that run less than hour. (usually)
• Transcribe portions of the video and at times add full transcripts
• Youtube provides transcripts but they’ve changed their format so it takes lot of work to clean it up.

Example:

0:01
hello our friends evolutionary energy
0:03
Arts family good
0:06
good day good morning 6 15 a.m where we
0:10
are and we've been up for hours we sure
0:12
have it's been nothing but pure fun like
0:14
like Christmas morning kinda well yeah
0:17
okay you know it's definitely been a
0:21
change it's been a change you know first
0:23
morning get up and actually feel like

[Spiral]

I just don't have the time for vids anymore, (sorry, I just try to stay abreast of whats going on in the broadest way I can ) so I just scroll past, esp as most have absolutely no description of what they are about, which they really should have. Who is going to watch an hour or two long vid just so they can comment, or find out something that could be summed up in a paragraph ?

Time stamps for salient points are a must, I agree with that point.

The title & subject is important too because the subject could become important years down the line when the vid has long since been removed, this happens more & more often these days.

[Mike]

My 2 cents, which is more or less the same as Bill's:

1) the poster in most cases should have watched the video (or at least most of it)

2) the poster should indicate how long the video is (this one is important to me)

3) Leave a short summary, but also include your own thoughts. Watching someone engage with the information, on a personal level, is kinda contagious! It can change the entire energy of the post, and maybe the direction of a thread. Because now we're all interacting with each other, and not just reacting to a video. It personalizes it. It generates more energy and excitement, and a willingness to participate. It brings the whole thing to life. When I see a thread with mostly videos, it has a sort of lifelessness to it...even if I like the videos being presented!

[Kryztian]

I get the impression some people share videos that haven't watched, and just post them so others will watch them and give a synopsis of them.

Just some basic things you can tells us in a short synopsis:

• Who made the video? This isn't always obvious from the video title and the graphic. Sometimes people will want to watch it because it is a familiar person. Or if they are someone who is generally not familiar to our community, say something about them.
  
  
• What is the topic of the video? Again, not always obvious. Titles like "You Must Watch this or Your Head Will EXPLODE" don't really tell us anything on what it is about or make me want to watch it.
  
  
• If we don't have time to watch the whole thing, is there a part we should watch? You might want to mention were to start watching.
  
  
• If you are starting a new thread with the video post, make sure the title of the thread reflects the topic and has some keyword in it that show up in searches.

I would say a three sentence summary would be adequate. Three sentences in your own words, not from the video description. Your. Own. Words. You can do it. If you are not able to do that, are you someone who should be telling the rest of us what to watch?

If you expect people to invest a lot of time and energy in watching the video, you can invest a little of your time in writing three sentences.

And if you have more than a little time and energy, why not bullet point some of the main points made in the video, that way you are helping not just the people who watch it, but the people who are not able to.

And yes. Mea culpa! I am a hypocrite and guilty of doing this too and not writing enough about what I post.

[araucaria]

I have always been dismayed at the general readiness to pass on other people’s information unfiltered. Propaganda was originally a concept of the Catholic church, with no negative connotation until some folk started objecting. I think there is still a lot of that going on today, with people not in the loop acting as echo chambers. Compare and contrast a squeaky clean conduit such as a waste pipe that uses water to clear effluent, with a filtering mechanism such as those used by gold seekers, which do the exact opposite. An echo chamber creates effective circulation in the order of evacuation of waste, but it takes some kind of an obstruction to filter out something positive like gold in mud; as well as an additional operation to separate the gold from the mud.


This suggests that posters of uncommented videos are obviously not themselves contributing to a discussion, just transporting it from A to B, and leaving the viewer to make the intellectual effort. Crafting a post that filters out something that you will not see anywhere else is extremely hard work, I can tell you. But that is precisely where things begin to happen. Sometimes the importance of what is being said will come into greater focus, or alternatively it will fade back into something not so useful, or even harmful. The critical filter is paramount, that is our input that distinguishes us from robots.


There is another downside to all this. Frequent video makers receive an inordinate amount of attention on a website that they may never even have heard of, possibly preventing members of that site from listening to each other and most of all thinking for themselves.

[Casey Claar]

Posted by Mike (here)

3) Leave a short summary, but also include your own thoughts. Watching someone engage with the information, on a personal level, is kinda contagious! It can change the entire energy of the post, and maybe the direction of a thread. Because now we're all interacting with each other, and not just reacting to a video. It personalizes it. It generates more energy and excitement, and a willingness to participate. It brings the whole thing to life. When I see a thread with mostly videos, it has a sort of lifelessness to it...even if I like the videos being presented!:

Thank you! ( yes ).

[Eagle Eye]

Many videos of people promoting themselves, show their face for hours without any other content and in the end it would be something summarized in 5 min. I watch videos only in rare occasions and those without description are always skipped.

[JackMcThorn]

Having some ground rules for the forum will be sort of akin to herding cats. Bill has mentioned it over and over to provide some detail to videos and it seems like for naught.

There is plenty of good posts and plenty that you sort of learn to gloss over. There really is too much information.

On some videos, I use the 5 second skip feature if the person is rambling. It will skip longer segments if you hold the arrow key down. I find I am less interested in videos lately.

I scan the new posts for the threads that I have interest in. Then I mark the forum read. This really saves some time sorting through the new content. When I have extra time, I dig deeper.

Cheers to such a friendly forum.

[mojo]

Hi,
I am one that uses videos in posts and hope that we keep the current status quo. People will choose to watch or not and it would feel somewhat confined if I couldnt post without using one. Although understand why the mod team might be looking at this topic. It's also admirable that Bill would try and keep so up to date on the forum.

[pabranno]

I’ve noticed how many of the older threads had an amazing amount of interacting energy and insight, sharpening each other like iron sharpens iron’. I realize the days and times have changed. I recognize the value videos can have…also their power, one way or the other. But I miss the energy, the sharing and critical thinking we did together.
I’d like to ask a simple question that has bothered me…..should I thank a video post that I haven’t watched? Partly I want to thank the poster for the time and effort and thought. Partly I feel like a hypocrite…

[DeDukshyn]

Posted by pabranno (here)
I’ve noticed how many of the older threads had an amazing amount of interacting energy and insight, sharpening each other like iron sharpens iron’. I realize the days and times have changed. I recognize the value videos can have…also their power, one way or the other. But I miss the energy, the sharing and critical thinking we did together.
I’d like to ask a simple question that has bothered me…..should I thank a video post that I haven’t watched? Partly I want to thank the poster for the time and effort and thought. Partly I feel like a hypocrite…

I never thank videos I don't watch or at least skim or have watched previously. I can't really thank something I don't have at least some insight or appreciation on (even if its just the time and effort the poster put into the post) - that would be disingenuous.

[DaveToo]

I thank Bill for making this post (it's my kind of post)

When I click on video links (for current news items) I am often surprised at how old the source video is.
It might not be apparent at first, but I often go digging to find the source.

My request for those who post video links here would be:

1. Please watch all or most of the video before posting (why should we watch something you haven't watched?)
2. Give the video an appropriate title.
3. Give a summary of the video at the very top of the post, in your own words.
4. State who made the video (not who posted/re-posted it on the web).
5. State the date the video was made (the original). Not the date it was posted/re-posted.
6. State the overall reason you think the video is of value.

It's easy to post a video link here at Avalon.
It's much much harder to go through the steps I've outlined above.
But I think it will accomplish two things.
- It will make people think twice before they frivolously post a link.
- Avaloners will appreciate the time and effort you took to completely vet the video before posting it.


There would be exceptions to this rule.
One that I can think of off the top of my head is the "What Music Are You Listening to Now?" thread where
the custom now is to simply post a video link to a song that's liked, with nothing more than the link itself.

[Denise/Dizi]

You are not alone in your observations...

I love the suggestions above...

[ian33]

no time for endless videos that waffle on leaving you wondering if there is a point, where when...we have choice to watch or not
..its an endless theatre of deception and plain lies
they(t.p.t.b.) are constantly promoting threats which may come or not, interspersed with heroes/ saviors who are saving the day,, is that just more plot hinting at a happy ending, a flag to rally round and project the 'good guys' onto whoever they may be, if not just the next line of pawns with an altruistic makeover...
..i just dont know, granted im in a cynical phase. saturn sat on me leaving me saturnised
..i like the site i like the people, main thing for me...people are trying to inform and care, whatever our individual imperfections...discernment level seems high here...thanks

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

When time is a factor, as it often is for many of us, providing a detailed summary of a video or a bullet-point list of talking points is not straight forward. I know it would put me off. In most cases, realistically, you have to watch the video twice.

The first watch through is just you watching the video. And you have to watch it first to determine whether or not the video is worth sharing. Then you sit through it a second time taking notes, etc. For a longish video that could take you all afternoon. I don't expect most of us have time for that, and it isn't really all that necessary - although it is appreciated.

In my view, a simple description or summary will suffice. For the majority of the time that's all the poster had to go on when he/she chose to watch the video in the first place. Sometimes all we get is the title. But when we share that video it speaks to its merit. So treat it as an endorsement, even more so if the poster is someone you know/like/trust.

Another tip I sometimes go with: post a couple of the comments (that come with the video). They also serve as an endorsement.

Hope I'm not being too presumptuous - this is only a suggestion - I would look to post a video in the following format:

• Title
• A link to the channel
• Video length
• The embedded video
• Timestamp(s) if relevant
• Description/Comment

**
E.g:
How Gender Differences Lead To Different Outcomes for Men and Women
Jordan B. Peterson
19 mins

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=XfdV7AHIrNk

- A gripping watch as always. Dr Peterson discusses the cultural and societal implications of gender differences, and how it impacts us all.

Top Comment:
katty
2 months ago (edited)
As a woman who's more interested in things than most women, I find it's highly overrated, and feminists romanticize the idea of a woman having typically masculine traits. The reality is, when you're a woman who isn't interested in the same things women are typically interested in(i.e. people, relationships, and gossip), it makes it really difficult to generate a secure circle of female friends. I have lived a life of social insecurity, and social rejection from other females, due to the inability to read into the unspoken social cues set up by the women of my community.