The positive definition of things to be posted here — cool music videos only — far too often gets ignored (or not even understood) and consequently the wish that "spam" gets deleted can be read frequently.

Maybe reposts (without a justifiable cause), still images with music, live perfomances without any editing, or cheesy parodies — what are the things you hate to find here and want to get deleted?

(original discussion here)

         

It seems like most of us would agree that the site isn't delivering something we want and yet any changes, that would be acceptable, would have to be minor since the community values the unfiltered ability to contribute to the site. In the original discussion, signal/noise ratio was frequently brought up. The thought being that the s/n ratio is misaligned right now and needs to be brought back to normalcy.

I'd suggest that, given the state of the music video industry today, our standard for what constitutes signal vs. noise is actually what is throwing the ratio off. Now, I respect our standard and I don't think it should be adjusted. Instead, what I'm saying is that music videos have fallen on very hard times and little, made today, could be considered good when compared against even the very recent history of music videos. In my mind, this means there are really two choices for our community and one of them requires more than just minor changes.

Choice #1 is to keep the site as is or modify it just slightly and accept that this will mean that most of the new videos posted and the subsequent discussion will be substandard.

Or

Choice #2 is to make more radical changes (most likely some form of active moderation or curation) that will likely mean a significant reduction in posts in exchange for posts that better match this community's standards.

I lean towards moderation/curation since I value the site and find myself here far less often because, as of late, it rarely offers content that I find valuable or interesting. Perhaps what's worse, the community itself seems to be dying off.

So, I would rather see fewer posts and I would rather have less control as a typical community member if this meant that the site's content would improve and that I could expect more interesting and lively discussion about music videos.

I think the following idea will run counter to what most antvillians would find desirable but I believe that the site would be best served with a monthly vote for a small group of curators who, for the next month, would then vet all posts before they went live.

It may be unfortunate but I'm just not interested in page after page of film student music videos or band shot videos or fan made remixes. Given the lack of comments, on pretty much all of this stuff, neither is the rest of the site. So, why do we let it stay?

I think it's some misguided sense of democratic process or internet freedom. Sure, modern democracies haven't provided that great of a role-model for the online world but our internet style of unfettered democratic posting simply leads to the tyranny of the masses.

This might not be so bad in better music video times but with the signal to noise ratio being at an all-time low the result is a barely functioning Antville. The community is dying and if we find that undesirable then we should take more drastic action than simply deleting reposts.

         

I've been visiting this site daily for a long time and have had it in my RSS feed for about 2 years. I enjoy any and all music videos; the good, the bad and the ugly. There is something to be learned by the work of others, no matter what. Sometimes I say to myself...How bad was that? That's horrible. I still watch it and learn something. I am involved with video production and don't judge the taste of others and I don't try to tell people what they should like or hate. To each his own. So do not blacklist. More variety is the spice of life.

         

+1 to kalstark. Lack of community on here is a shame. Look back 5 years and it was a more fulfilling discussion.

Perhaps there's a happy medium. A group could curate "top news" which would be a few videos that stay at the top for a little while.

Meanwhile, anyone can still post anything, which will appear below the top news, somewhere in the middle of the first page.

         

I wish there was a vote up, vote down function. Below a certain threshold, it gets buried into a "click here to see this entry." Vote up, and one can see the response.

Sure, it's possible to have multiple accounts and game the system, but that will take a lot of work.

As it is now, I simply click on the right side "recent comments" section and see what people are talking about.

But overall I watch less videos because I rarely recognize any artist or director on the front page, and I don't have the time to sort through the others looking for good stuff.

         

am all for clever headlines and evern smarter screen grabs as it is now, i read the comments and then watch the videos; the more comments a video has gathered, the more likely i am to watch it. i dont believe in votes up or down, because i dont trust people's taste, i dont think that might makes right, i dont want to miss out on a gem of a video because the ville community says its not worth it. and i dont want to watch ok go videos or some other viral videos that this community appreciates. diversity is key

ps: however, all montecrossa videos should be deleted without warning & its a good thing the favourites are now archived and easy to access

         

"overall I watch less videos because I rarely recognize any artist or director on the front page, and I don't have the time to sort through the others looking for good stuff."

partly, this is to do with there just being so many more videos being made and "published" - and ideally the whole point of the 'ville would be a hived sorting of the wheat from the chaff. the trick is how to engineer that function.

(also keep in mind that part of the reason there is less activity on the site is because the contents are also delivered via RSS and twitter, so a fair number of users read it remotely. a radical intervention could be closing those feeds, walling-in/refocussing the site to its here-and-now. what would that spell for the 'ville's future?

oh, and: recent-comments as entry-point, me three. that's how you see where the conversation is at - which is what this place is for, fundamentally. definitely need to factor that in to any "solution".

         

Why not opt for a FFFFOUND-like model: users are accepted by invite only, and post whatever meets their standards of special/noteworthy.

I suppose there are enough people active here who display the 'good taste' that the majority of visitors (like myself) are looking for... even though that very probably means a drastic decrease in posted videos.

Since i check this site only once, twice a month (in fact, i usually head straight for the 'best of last month'-post), i'd rather have to watch 20 great videos, than wade through 200, of which 90% is crap.

         

recent-comments as entry-point, me four. although, come the monthly faves, i scavenge everything to make sure i haven't missed anything (not everyone has time for this, i know).

but sometimes the comments seem stuffed too, so i don't think the solution is adding up or down votes.

is it possible to create a separate section for "quickies" and have the main section with the most important stuff? in this solution the videos would be posted in the same manner as now, only they would only appear in this "quickies" section which would occupy less space on the homepage. then, selected villians could switch the better stuff from the quickies to the main section (top discussed videos, monthly faves, big name director videos, etc.) thus having a cleaner and shorter homepage. something in the lines of motionographer.com

i guess it's pretty much the same idea stoney was thinking of. this way there's no blacklist, there's only some kind of filter that gives faster access to better stuff, even if the better stuff is a okgo video, a montecrossa one, a student video or whatever…

also these selected villians could delete spams and reposts, which are the things that bother me the most. i know some reposts are good because they show different versions, better links, etc. but most of them are just not necessary.

i don't know if this would make a better antville or not, i just think something has to change, because i think in the last year or so this site has lost focus. still i keep coming back to it, so there's that…

just my 2 cents, anyway.

         

I'll be quick this time. :) I just wanted to chime in and say that I like Stoney's idea of a partially curated site - with a curated 'top news' section that stays at the top. This is likely an effective change that still manages to keep the site feeling much like it does now to its users. Perhaps the curators could be restricted to culling from what is posted by other users thus keeping the site firmly user generated.

         

motionographer quickies/main-stories is akin to a two-tier approach i've been mulling. will look into it some more.

any division of content (the top-of-the-'ville / rest-of-the-valley strategy is perhaps the most straightforward idea so far) requires regular intervention, so that'd also need deciding (who/when/how).

re: fffound-like membership-by-invite is something you can set out with, i think. implemented post hoc it makes for a walled garden likely to lead to incest/in-fighting rather then encouraging more/better participation - but that's just my gut feeling.

         

Re Progosk's suggestion:

One possibility for the (who/when/how) could be a quick vote/poll at the end of each month (around the same time as the 'best of' post). The elected curators would then pull from the regular patch of posts and create the top-of-the-ville posts. If these posts were, say, the top 10 posts of the front page that would mean every time one comes to the site one sees a strong selection of what the month has to offer in music videos.

And, if I want to see more, I just keep checking out posts below the top 10. So, no one is excluded and the rare but brilliant film-student music video can still get seen. The nice thing about this approach is it allows everyone to post and it might actually be nice to have a curator select one of your posts to be in the top-of-the-ville.

Moreover, and as a positive side-effect, the core discussion would typically end up on the front page, within the top 10 posts. It should make for a livelier feel and it would strengthen the community by giving Antville a virtual 'downtown' type area as opposed to the urban sprawl we have going now, where your best choice for seeking out good videos is to creep the recent comments section.

         

Oh ffs. Just set a rating system and make it possible to sort the posts by either the rating or the time/date.

         

Rating systems, like Digg's or Reddit's, can be easily gamed on a smaller site like Antville. The top posts would all be Montecrossa vids propped up by dummy accounts. I worry something like that would kill this place off even faster.

         

I agree with a lot of what is mentioned here. Because the ville is starting to look like shortsville and that place is a graveyard.....

         

you have to concider that they're 10 to 20 posts each day...of course that is too much for one or two admins to handle. now picture the members who just pop in once or twice a week. they don't have the time and the patience to peruse through all that stuff to find the 'cool' vids.

the division of content idea seems like a good one and i think it doesn't necessarily undermine the free spirit of the ville when you select some of the reliable members to separate the wheat from the chaff. it would make the site more lucid. i guess it's no problem to find 4 or 5 of the regulars who'll be happy and dedicated enough to take that responsibility.

         

liking the motionographer two tier approach.

         

I agree with most of what is said, except the rating. That will bring film school / bangbus videos to the top of the pile. They'd register multiple accounts and vote in.

But hey it's a win win moderating. It's time for a change.

         

bangbus.com

         

So what's the next step if we want to try a curated section at the top of Antville? And, do we give it a trial period of 2 or 3 months to see if it improves the issues we're having with the site? I'm willing to help if needed and I'm sure many others are too.

         

My list of things not to be posted here: Mainly Michel Montecrossa’s New-Topical-Song's video's they are not very good I might be able to ignore the clip scrolling past its screen cap, but the bloody lyrics always hit me in the face

its just a comment, I doubt that there is a cure, sometimes people seem sloppy curating their posts example: like when a video's posted with the director unknown Someone else posts that information but original post author will never think to put the info on the story banner

'Reposts' pity there aint an auto bot that would recognise the clip and refuse it permission, I know it would be hard to implement, coz the search engine on here sometimes won't give up clips u know are posted on the 'ville and another that would block videos with bloody 'autoplay' left on!

         

imo, no trial period. change it for good. it will work in the long run. believe me, in a year's time no-one will remember how it was before. i've been keeping the monthly faves alive, so for sure i'm available to help out on any other issues if needed. so, bring it.

         

Hmm. Same discussion was held a while back. Personally I think the loose nature of the site is it's strength. The freedom is just not being exploited enough I think. Those looking to "curate" are free to watch all of the postings, and post a daily news letter with recommended videos. There's nothing stopping you. The Monthly Favs is a great resource. Having someone do a weekly or daily version would be cool I think. J

         

Other ideas that might meet your goal without too much extra work. 1) Limited character count on the front page to prevent folks from writing essays under each post. 2) Force people to take screen grabs by disabling embedding on the front page. This I think would weed out some of the lazy spammers and stop the awful autoplay videos.

         

@ jesse I'm glad someone suggests people should do screen grabs I didn't say it when I reposted, but thought about it after It was late 'n I was involved in other things......

The 'ville one time encouraged the use of html to post Whether it made the quality of the clips posted any better I've no idea but yes I think it would stop idle spammers and the bloody autoplay

         

however, although im also for scrabsreen g, i wouldnt spend too much time doing this when embeddin is faster and easier

         

Cool ideas -- limited character count & disable embedding - but I still prefer the idea of a curated top section of the website. Any sort of Monthly Favs version wouldn't do the trick as it would just get pushed down by the dollar van demo videos, the fashion videos set to music, the short films, or even the latest spec commercial by some guy, who was at one time a 2nd AD on a music video.

I think Antville will maintain its relevancy and value by going back to its roots. And not its 'free-for-all' roots (which is just a style of utilizing user-based content after all) but its thematic roots.

Antville is a place where people, who love music videos, can go to see the best new stuff and talk about it with other like-minded individuals. But now you're just as likely to scroll through page after page of YouTube cast-offs. It's to the point where less than 30% of posts manage to attract even a single comment and, I know that the following isn't what Jesse is saying, but I feel that the lack of overall quality doesn't make the site a cool counter-culture place where anybody can contribute. Instead, it makes the site look like a dumping ground.

Antville can stay loose, on the whole, but if we want it to remain a place where we can oft stumble upon the brilliance that can be achieved in music videos and a place where thoughtful discussions about the art and craft of videos can be had then we can't keep going down this same path.

In fact, each page on Antville shows 20 posts and something like a curated top 10 posts on the front page wouldn't take away from what makes Antville Antville. Instead it would showcase what makes this site special by consistently placing emphasis on the best the art and craft of music videos has to offer.

         

embedding is one of those times-they-are-a-changing things. it used to be that i'd have ranted for screengrabs (and against youtube! only movs allowed, way back when...), mainly because just-text posts were ugly and hermetic. but antville's add image function is sadly a little unwieldy, and then embedding has really become such a standard procedure. (it'd be great to be able to auto-kill any autoplay that's left on, but i don't think that's codeable here.)

maximum text length might be an easy, good aesthetic limiter of front-page logorrhea. (maybe the input fields need a little rethink altogether?)

i'd also love a minimal little html widget to make it easier to link (and maybe also to italicise and to bold?).

mail, kino.

         

Okay, I think I just watched my first full Michel Montecrossa video (it's on the front page right now)... WTF! I think we need a curated section more than ever now.

         

you talked a blue streak, yet the spammers are still there, more vigorous than ever

         

work is under way.

         

Thanks Progosk. Looking forward to what you guys cook up. :)

         

killer

         

. . . . sorry, temporarily offline<!--Thanks for your comments!

@ limited character count: automated clipping would work if the only content was text, but that wouldn't allow images and embeds to be displayed on the front page, so that probably wouldn't make sense.

@ best videos at the top of the page: I see a lot of downsides with that, too.

"not selected" videos would get out of view of visitors and content managers. After a day (or maybe a week), the "selected" videos would get confused with the mass, it wouldn't be possible to view only the last 100 of the better ones, people would wonder about the strange dates and why their videos don't appear on top, etc.

At first sight, Brigs suggestion to create a separate section looked a bit complicated, but it turned out to be viable.

The new box on top of the column at the right hand side indicates that the technical infrastructure for a second stream is already there: content managers now can tag videos so their headline will be included, viewers can click promising headlines or get the whole stream "in full size" on the main page. -->

         

Is it best videos or posts with the most comments? Because, for example, that new Tyler video is crappy but fun to read the thread. it's also a highish profile director & artist.

And how big does that box get? I assume it's only 3 now because it's new?

But looking good!

         

looking forward to the changes :)

         

Prediction: Lots of arguments over what goes in that box. Kudos to the people implementing the changes though!

         

If I may, I have 4 questions:

1. How does a post get boxed? Is it based on comments? Is it curated? Has this already been explained and I missed it? :)

2. How many items can/will the box hold?

3. Would the posts in the box look better/read easier/seem more prominent if there was a double-space between posts?

4. Is 'The 'ville' the permanent name of the box or is it a temp place holder? If it's up for discussion, I vote for 'The Box'. ;)

Also, thanks.

         

imo, the "box" as is, is not the solution. although i like the name, kalstark. anyway, i'm sure we'll have a spanking new 'ville by the awards time late this year. cheers

         

:)

Brigs, my gut instinct tells me that the box thing is too little of a change to have significant effect but the more I think about it and let it marinate the more it makes sense... Not sure if it'll work but I'm glad Progosk et al. gave something a try and I like that their solution is so elegantly minimalist.

After all, most people claimed that they used the comments section as a gerry-rigged method of finding the hidden gems on the site. The box thing stays true to that already used workaround and seeks to make it much more efficient.

Basically, the longer I stare at the box the more I like it. Now, I'm mostly curious to know how it selects its content.

         

just tweaking a few more things; looking to kicking it off within a day or two.

         

THE BOX like the penalty box in airports where we poor smokers gather round to be discriminated against i like it, it means the chosen few have found some rare gems and put them on display for the whole world to see makes me feel like in a pawn shop; too bad your picks dont appeal to me, maybe the """"curators"""" should take turns

         

hold it in for another little bit, before passing water/judgment, can ye? thx.

         

This is almost like waiting for Christmas/Kwanzaa. ;)

         

what happened to videoville? Can't acess it anymore.

         

ciao almo - the motnhly faves parked on a static antville page here; links need some cleaning; the rest is archived here. should all be up on static pages once antville 1.3 is in the - or rather: out of - the bag.

         

Thanks for your answer, progosk. Can't wait for this 1.3 version! But somehow the archived link is inaccessible right now from my computer. Will try again tomorrow.

         

Curated video selections are a nice idea to wade through the dreck, but I don't think that will actually do much to improve the user experience here on a level any deeper than minimizing the time spent suffering fools. What truly makes this site special is the user base that is singularly passionate about the medium, but the level of discourse here is cut off at the knees by a lack of a dedicated forum. You can't search user histories, you can't search for stickied posts or discussions, and you essentially can't create a space for the discussion outside of anything immediately relevant to the video in which a comment thread exists. There are deep and wonderful things--and terrible, and terribly wonderful ones, too--that could be plied by the like-minded among us, but we have nowhere to do this save the individual posts that are soon buried under the deluge of ever newer videos. If you want to elevate the discourse here and create something really meaningful for those of us emotionally and financially invested in the medium of music videos, then it requires a fundamental reconstruction of the posting system. It might not need to be messageboard per se, and I don't claim to know what it might need to be otherwise, but I think if we put our collective minds to it an effective solution could be found.

         

user history - dat s a nice thought

         

good points, hater. antville's not strong on local identity because in the original plan, videos.ant was just a kind of video-wall for all the folks with me.ant blogs. there might be a way to wrestle the architecture round to better house the thought-lounge that this place has the potential to be.(One aborted attempt was videoville, where the architecture again proved not to be comfy for discourse to thrive.) Thematic posts would seem to be another good potential attractor-mechanism to get folks gathering round. It's true, though, that the near-Canabalt haste keeps even those posts from gathering, if not the moss, at least the patina of thought they deserve. There will at least be a differentiation of speed in 1.3.

1.3 will be live as soon as kino's dealt with a couple of other urgencies.

         

Haterade, lots of great thoughts in your post. Progosk, the anticipation is killing me for 1.3. I'm looking forward to checking out and participating in the new and improved Antville.

         

don't be expecting any huge makeover, mind you - it'll just be a subtle/simple change, and actually more in terms of engagement than in architecture or code.

         

Sound like a good start. Antville has lasted as long as it has because there is something special about this place that keeps people coming back. I'm sure no one wants to change this so drastically that whatever makes this place special gets lost. Some changes (likely the ones you're making) do seem necessary. I'm just one person but I've found that I have less reason to visit as of late and I don't want that to be the case going forward.

         

there is a css-function in antville for blocking trolls, why not change this towards "southerwinds" (i am sure he is not clever enough to bypass this) and an inputcheck of the editing formular - when headline contains the string montecrossa - it will not be safed?!

         

Another nice thing would be a section with hot posts (daily, weekly, mounthly). And they could be organized by views (clicks on the posts) and comments. Would that be a possible thing to do? If so, I think it would be a very valuable feature.

         

hm, methinks not poss - there's no automatic stats back-end to antville. oh, and: kino, hope all's ok; ready when you are.

         

I'm really late on this one ... but I'm all for disabled embedding. Pretty sure it would remove the lazy instant posters. And make it easier to select what to watch from hand picked screenshots rather than the nightmarish youtube thumbnail selection. Might spruce the place up a bit too.

         

u are right but am too lazy to screen grab and upload id rather embed

         

yap, i'm with legion on this one.

         

What's the status on this?

         

status on this is that until an antville coder shows up, there is no new status on this. (sad to say, but true...)

         

I know referenced a few times in this discussion, but thought I'd post a working example: I really like how QBN ( www.qbn.com ) splits between "editor/approved" and the "public feed" (not to mention the forum/public voice section) for the design community. Anyway, been a follower/reader for year here and have always thought a framework like this would be valuable to this community. p.s. someone should post that Scott Pippen's video that is the their lead post right now. Couldn't find it, but pretty amazing.

         

just give more peope the right to delete spam.

         

Montecrossa

         

I'm late ..... Eleonore de Wismes .

         

Way late to this thread but very excited to see all of the suggestions - I've been out of the community here for a while mostly due to the problems addressed here. A more curated Antville would provide a way back and shine a much needed light on great work.

         

paging kinomu... white courtesy telephone, please.

         

Ninety Seconds - Nightclub Scene...Do they think they are David Lynch ??? Delete!

         

Michel Montecrossa !!!

         

Michel Montecrossa & Spam

         

What's the status of this? :P

         

I am a new member and have posted only one video. This being said, I did a search for my video before posting to make sure it wasn't a repost. However, I did get feedback from members that it was a repost.

If it is, perhaps a better internal search tool would add to this already very cool site?