• For our 10th anniversary on May 9th, 2024, we will be giving out 15 GB of free, off-shore, DMCA-resistant file storage per user, and very possibly, public video hosting! For more details, check a look at our roadmap here.

    Welcome to the edge of the civilized internet! All our official content can be found here. If you have any questions, try our FAQ here or see our video on why this site exists at all!

On Restarting Video Production...

Arnox

Master
Staff member
Founder
Messages
5,289
Houseman and Gauche were talking to me in the chatbox about starting videos again. Something I'd actually love to do, but here's the situation. While I'm not averse to posting videos on YouTube, I'm very adverse to doing so when they're the only ones we have hosting our videos. If we use YouTube, we need to have a fallback source for our videos.

AWS is off the table as they've shown they don't have an issue censoring and completely removing shit. But they're really cheap, and if we go somewhere else, I guarantee you, we're gonna be paying top dollar for the assurance that our videos will remain untouched.
 

gaijinkaiju

Lord Inquisitor
Sanctuary legend
Sanctuary contributor
Messages
612
Houseman and Gauche were talking to me in the chatbox about starting videos again. Something I'd actually love to do, but here's the situation. While I'm not averse to posting videos on YouTube, I'm very adverse to doing so when they're the only ones we have hosting our videos. If we use YouTube, we need to have a fallback source for our videos.

AWS is off the table as they've shown they don't have an issue censoring and completely removing shit. But they're really cheap, and if we go somewhere else, I guarantee you, we're gonna be paying top dollar for the assurance that our videos will remain untouched.
bitchute or odysee, should be good. I'd go odysee personally since its more mainstream than bitchute.
 

Houseman

Zealot
Sanctuary legend
Messages
1,069
If we use YouTube, we need to have a fallback source for our videos.
Why's that?

What are our true goals, to grow a community, or make and archive videos?
They're a means to an end, to get users to the forums, right?
So does that mean we should treat these videos as expendable?

Regardless of the answers to above, I feel this isn't a real issue we need to worry about.

If we treat Youtube as a tool to gain users, we shouldn't be uploading content that even comes close to violating Youtube's policies or being demonetized or suppressed. Youtube throwing away our stuff shouldn't be a danger that we would need to worry about, even if they suddenly change the rules one day.

Even if Youtube does throw away all our stuff, they would do so at some distant point in the future, and hopefully by then, we would have gained some users as a result. If it happens, it's not going to happen immediately.

AWS is off the table as they've shown they don't have an issue censoring and completely removing shit.
Why was Parler removed?
Because it's big enough to be recognized. Big enough to gain media attention. Big enough to be an actual threat to Twitter, Google, Facebook, etc.

I guarantee you that there are hundreds if not thousands of sites and stored content running off of S3 that never gets scrutinized and even has worse stuff than Parler ever had.

This isn't a real danger. Nobody cares, and nobody will ever care until we start making actual waves, and by that point, we'll have enough users to grow by word of mouth.


This has the smell of a "I don't want to do this, so I'm finding excuses for not doing it" thing going on here. Mostly because I don't think your concerns are warranted. Maybe it'll take too much work and you have too much going on right now to deal with it. I don't know. But it's just a waft, and this isn't the only time I thought I smelled this smell. Most recently, I smelled it when you were talking about webcomics, how it needed to be a certain quality, and how it needed to have a regular schedule. It smells like you're already preparing excuses to not do it.

You have this sort of overthinker, pessimistic, worrywart, scent about you.

Just put your doubts and fears aside and just DO something otherwise you'll never get anywhere, ya dingus!
 

Arnox

Master
Staff member
Founder
Messages
5,289
Okay! Finally can reply.

Why's that?

What are our true goals, to grow a community, or make and archive videos?
They're a means to an end, to get users to the forums, right?
So does that mean we should treat these videos as expendable?
Somewhat. While the videos themselves aren't too important since I save and post the transcript for each video, I still would like a reliable video archive. Admittedly yes, it's probably not as important as I'm making it out to be, but if we can find a good host, we really should do that. Losing videos may not be that much of a loss but it is still a loss.

If we treat Youtube as a tool to gain users, we shouldn't be uploading content that even comes close to violating Youtube's policies or being demonetized or suppressed.
Remember that this is YouTube we're talking about. Like the Escapist, enforcement consistency isn't exactly one of their strong points.

This has the smell of a "I don't want to do this, so I'm finding excuses for not doing it" thing going on here.
Actually... As much as I hate to admit it, you're partly correct here. And I could talk about how I'm discouraged from doing something new because I butterfly or because it usually doesn't work out the way I think it will, but yeah, these are excuses pretty much.

You have this sort of overthinker, pessimistic, worrywart, scent about you.
One of my biggest strengths, and simultaneously, one of my biggest problems is that I'm VERY good at finding issues. I don't even have to actively think about it. They just come to me. And while this is very useful when rebalancing a weapon set or a ruleset or designing and maintaining a site, it also means my monkey brain sometimes tries its damndest to find issues with committing to an action or breaking out of an established habit, hence the lack of discipline and perfectionism.
 
Last edited:

Arnox

Master
Staff member
Founder
Messages
5,289
Does the upsides of possibly gaining new users outweigh the risk and downsides of possibly losing videos?

I don't know what this means.
Nope, but if you know of a better host, I'd really like to hear it.

It means drifting from one thing to another and never really finishing anything.
 

Houseman

Zealot
Sanctuary legend
Messages
1,069
I meant they do outweigh them but before we jump to YouTube (again) we should consider our options.
Okay.

Again, I don't think it's something we need to worry about right now, nor do I think we would ever need to worry about being kicked off S3 unless we gain media attention.
 

bluegate

Disciple
Sanctuary legend
Messages
292
Just upload them to YouTube for the time being.

If and when they get removed from YouTube, you can always re-upload them to whatever crappy free hosting you'll be able to find at that point in time.

AWS is off the table as they've shown they don't have an issue censoring and completely removing shit.
As long as you're not going to host videos that promote and deal in planning an insurrection, I think you'll be fine 😂🤷‍♂️
 

Vendor-Lazarus

Arch Disciple
Sanctuary legend
Messages
937
As long as you're not going to host videos that promote and deal in planning an insurrection, I think you'll be fine 😂🤷‍♂️
This is wrong on so many accounts..I can't even... ... ..
Please consider searching out sources and facts for yourself.
 

bluegate

Disciple
Sanctuary legend
Messages
292
I can't tell if you're being willfully dumb or just don't care. lol
Just don't care about your delusional crusade for frozen peaches.

You take some stuff way too seriously to the point it just becomes a big joke.

Case in point, your struggle with uploading videos to YouTube in the rare case that they might get removed at some point.
 
Last edited:

Battousai

Brother Sharp
Sanctuary legend
Sanctuary contributor
Messages
560
Occupation
Cookmaster supreme
Case in point, your struggle with uploading videos to YouTube in the rare case that they might get removed at some point.
I will agree to that, Arnox you rant way too much about your gripes with Youtube, but your vids getting deleted can happen in a myriad of other video hosting sites too. Besides all you need to do is re upload them in the rare case that any of that actually happens, I assume you actually keep and archive the complete vids for future reference or use. So the videos wouldn't really be lost.
 

Drathnoxis

Devotee
Messages
231
If we treat Youtube as a tool to gain users, we shouldn't be uploading content that even comes close to violating Youtube's policies or being demonetized or suppressed.
Is Youtube a very good tool to draw users to a forum? I mean, Yahtzee gets around 200k-400k views per ZP and the Escapist hasn't gotten a new member on the forums since, like, 2015. People on Youtube are just going to stay on Youtube. That was why most Escapist members joined before they started uploading the videos to Youtube.
 

Houseman

Zealot
Sanctuary legend
Messages
1,069
Is Youtube a very good tool to draw users to a forum? I mean, Yahtzee gets around 200k-400k views per ZP and the Escapist hasn't gotten a new member on the forums since, like, 2015. People on Youtube are just going to stay on Youtube. That was why most Escapist members joined before they started uploading the videos to Youtube.
That's all very true.
I think the difference is that the videos we would make would be actively plugging and linking to the forums. Will it be effective? I dunno.

When escapist first got yahtzee, they restricted the videos to their own site, and the forums were just a click away.
 

Arnox

Master
Staff member
Founder
Messages
5,289
Just don't care about your delusional crusade for frozen peaches.

You take some stuff way too seriously to the point it just becomes a big joke.

Case in point, your struggle with uploading videos to YouTube in the rare case that they might get removed at some point.
I'm going to address your example, but right now, what I was actually talking about doesn't really have anything to do with me or the Sanctuary. So let's put those things entirely aside for a second.

You made the assertion that content won't be removed unless you're some radical wackjob, but me and Vendor are telling you that that is VERY far from the case, and the big tech companies are getting ridiculously censorious (when they're not being ridiculously inconsistent and greedy). Your response to this was basically the equivalent of "I don't care, fuck off." when you really really should care. Why do you think sites like ours (and even the Escapist) struggle so hard anyway? Because everyone's congregated to a few sites. And on the internet, attention is power. And guess which sites have at least 80% of the power?

This isn't going to get better. This is going to get worse. Parler may have been a shitty service, granted, but it was also no worse than Twitter, and it looks like Parler only barely survived. So yeah, I could say more, but I'm gonna stop there and leave a video that goes more in depth into this problem. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev__j30ZRTw

-

Ok then, back to Sanctuary. Yeah, I've been hesitant about posting videos to YouTube, but Houseman already pretty much convinced me that it's probably worth it anyway. Probably wasn't being clear with that.

Besides all you need to do is re upload them in the rare case that any of that actually happens
Once we get a lot of steam behind us, we'll have literally hundreds of videos. Now, it's true that some services have bulk video uploading, but not all of them do. And even with those, it will still be a pain in the ass because it will take a while and the videos will all need new descriptions. Now again, yeah, this still isn't enough of a reason to not use YouTube, but I'm just telling you guys, YouTube is unreliable, hence, I'd rather not rely on them if we have a choice.

That's all very true.
I think the difference is that the videos we would make would be actively plugging and linking to the forums. Will it be effective? I dunno.

When escapist first got yahtzee, they restricted the videos to their own site, and the forums were just a click away.
I think this was actually a combination of three things. One, the latest videos weren't on YouTube (and the end parts were cut out of the YouTube videos too). Two, to comment on the latest videos, you had to post on the forums. And three, the Escapist had a lot more content besides just YouTube videos to keep users around.
 

Drathnoxis

Devotee
Messages
231
That's all very true.
I think the difference is that the videos we would make would be actively plugging and linking to the forums. Will it be effective? I dunno.

When escapist first got yahtzee, they restricted the videos to their own site, and the forums were just a click away.
Yeah, that's what I meant. Forum traffic was huge until 2011 when they started uploading to Youtube. Then it starts to drop off, slowly because of the huge inertia, I had a thread on the old site with some data about forum activity that seemed to corroborate this theory. A majority of users have a join date of 2009-2012, as well.

Of course, the Escapist never did effectively use Youtube as a way to advertise their own site and were simply content to soak up whatever ad revenue they could.
 

Arnox

Master
Staff member
Founder
Messages
5,289
Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention, if you guys have any videos you want me to upload, you can go ahead and give them to me and I'll put them on the Sanctuary YouTube channel.
 

Battousai

Brother Sharp
Sanctuary legend
Sanctuary contributor
Messages
560
Occupation
Cookmaster supreme
Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention, if you guys have any videos you want me to upload, you can go ahead and give them to me and I'll put them on the Sanctuary YouTube channel.
Videos of what exactly? Like my edited game recordings when I post to my own channel or something of the sort? Or you are looking for videos that discuss a variety of topics.
 

Arnox

Master
Staff member
Founder
Messages
5,289
Videos of what exactly? Like my edited game recordings when I post to my own channel or something of the sort? Or you are looking for videos that discuss a variety of topics.
Ok so... I kinda messed up. Technically, I can access the account just fine, but Google is being a fucking dick and forcing me to give a phone number to them just to get into the account. And while I know there are phone numbers you can get which can receive texts for you, keeping ahold of them permanently is a pain in the ass.
 

Arnox

Master
Staff member
Founder
Messages
5,289
Videos of what exactly? Like my edited game recordings when I post to my own channel or something of the sort? Or you are looking for videos that discuss a variety of topics.
EDIT: Nevermind. We got it solved. And whatever you like as long as it follows the main Sanctuary rules.
 
Top