Solving gifs as a preference over videos.
A well known issue of reddit (and most of the internet these days) is gifs as a fundamentally more popular way to consume videos. There are good reasons for this in the current makeup of the internet with mobile browsers dominating the online space. Voters are likely to be using mobile browsers and mobile browsers are likely to be the dominant browser. Gifs have no sound which is preferable out-and-about, they also tend to load better than videos, especially if a user doesn't want to switch to a dedicated mobile app that will load that video or popup a "open in" notification. Even many PC users simply don't like the extra time it takes to load videos over a gifv.
This is however not preferable for a high-quality site. It results in content creators not getting views for their work. It results in sources of content not being posted at all on many occasions, even in comments. Many of the game subreddits have people that create gif clips of a video just because it will be more popular, then post the source video that it's from in the comments. It's not ideal.
How can this be solved?
I encourage everyone to answer this question using the wildest of fantasies, even if you think the idea might be unfeasible at a technology level. Let the people working with the code decide if its feasible or not, put forth your wildest idea to solve it.
I'll start: Perform processing of video to gif as a function of the site. Provide users with the ability to choose a preference of gif vs video. Give people the section of the video as a gif clip but also provide the content source with a view of the clipped section (somehow) so the source actually does get a view of that video in that section for its clipped part.
This potentially unfeasible suggestion provides the best of both worlds, providing the user with the type of clip they want (gif/video) which will be better for their browser while also providing the source creator with a view on their video even if the user views the gif. At the same time this also ensures that a majority of gif content (at least for videogames/twitch/youtube, the majority) actually does have the source because it used the site's own clipping tool to set the gif. No need to use anything else if it is site integrated.
Other ideas and thoughts on this topic? Programmable ways to solve it? Preferences? Moderation?
I'm not going to click a youtube video while browsing an aggregator site in 99.9999999% of cases. I'm just not going to do it, it usually pulls me out of the browser into the app (which is on my device and the default for youtube links for all the times I'm not using an aggregator site, so the solution isn't changing that behaviour) and generally fucks with the flow of the site overall. Imgur (not v.reddit, which is shit for latency and quality) gifv links work quite well however - though usually the content is fluff, which is not what I want to see here anyways.
There are a few times when gifvs make perfect sense though, and the content isn't fluff: gifrecipes is 1000x better than watching someone try and be the star of a movie where the star is the food. Various artisanal videos as well are assisted by the gif format effectively neutering the personality spruiking, which is nice.
You're not wrong but I'd rather not get hung up on the reasons for the behaviour in the first place. It's a rabbit hole that doesn't solve the problem. I don't think the fact that the behaviour occurs is disputed. Gifs get more votes than videos because more people will watch a gif instead of a video. This is true even where gifs are very long. Length of video isn't the reason people don't click the videos but will click the gifs.
If it's not a phenomenon that things are built with an understanding of then we will have gifs again be more popular and thus more frequently submitted than videos as the size of the site increases. It won't happen initially but the change will occur when submitters hit a point where they start competing with one another.
Every edge possible will be exploited by content creators and content promoters to get ahead of other submitters. So we won't be able to stop submitters. Viewers themselves already don't actually complain about it anywhere else online, except in a few instances where you'll see comments like "this is so much better with sound". So viewers are unlikely to complain much about seeing a gif instead of a video, even so it'll become a point of conflict in comments which is just a source of negativity that I think can be pre-empted and avoided.
It worries me a bit that there's a significant amount of "just solve it with site culture" in most Tildes discussion threads. Culture will only work up to various size thresholds and then things will become the wild west. There's a reason subreddit's deteriorate in quality at quantities like 10k subs, 25k subs, 50k subs, 100k subs - It's because culture ceases to be capable of controlling certain behaviours at various thresholds. The behaviour changes and people notice it. It is a necessity to pre-empty what behaviour changes will occur and will no longer be controllable via culture so systems can appropriately accept what the behaviour will be and thus be built to mitigate it.
Hmm this comment had a bit of tangential stream of thought so it might somewhat messy. I apologise if it's a little all over the place but I've gotta get out the door so I'll just send it as is with a "sorry" instead of editing it down.
It's not just reddit though. This isn't just a reddit-culture thing.
It's twitter. It's tumblr. It's facebook. It's discord. It's Pinterest. It's even comment sections across the whole internet.
It's everywhere. Users click on or view a direct link gif(gifv/whatever) more than they will click on a link that goes to a whole website (or asks to open an app) that loads a whole website or app to display a video. Even with embedded inline videos with a play button, the gifs(or gifvs) are still winning. You can see twitter tried to approach this a bit with autoplay audioless videos that apply audio if you click them, gif/gifv still sees more success on twitter than the actual videos.
Could you name some of those community sites with discussion where the users don't like or use gif/v's? I'm genuinely curious and will take the time to go looking through them.
Further up the thread @Kat mentions
I'd probably add Metafilter and more niche forums like those at Ars Technica.
Imgur has introduced 'gifs with sound':
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/29/imgur-video/
By the way: GIFV is a html/js file pointing to a webm and mp4 file.
Strong disagree on this point. Animated GIFs are crap in terms of filesize, the GIF-to-MP4 reddit bot is evidence of that. The only reason they're perceived to load faster is that animated GIFs tend to have a significantly lower frame rate than real video.
Yep. Perfectly true. Point is that they're perceived to load better, because the files they do load do load better. Whether they're short low frame rate gifs or a better file size gifv.
Wasn't intending to be particularly comprehensive on that point. More the fact that it's a problem and that thinking ahead now could result in a site that approaches it in a new way that understands and accepts users do view them more (for whatever reasons) while mitigating the problems.
So I personally never watch videos, because I usually browse the Internet in situations where playing sound is not an option.
I think your problem is not something that should be solved on the ~ side of this. As long as ~ encourages video sharing (with source) and discussion, they have done their job in my book. Other aspects of this problem are better solved by content creators. For example, I have no problem with videos that are subtitled, and they will get my views.
Solve what? That gifs are popular? I get that maybe you just don't like them, but that doesn't mean that the millions of other people are wrong. Gifs aren't a problem to be solved.
???
GIFV is just a term Imgur made up. GIFV is an HTML5 video without sound. Literally just a muted video that loops.
I think there's a bit of a false dichotomy here. I don't believe gifs actually compete with videos, at least in general. I think the reason gifs get more views than videos is simply because gifs cater to a different audience, or at least cater to the audience in a different context.
The real phenomenon you're observing isn't just gifs versus videos, it's quick and easy-to-consume content that requires little interaction versus more engaging content that may be longer or more interactive.
I'm not sure this is necessarily a problem either, but it's contextual. Do people expect Tildes to be a sight where they go only for more engaging content demanding more of their time, or do people expect Tildes to offer an outlet for both types of content?
The obvious comparison is Reddit, and I think Reddit demonstrates nicely the fact that there really isn't a problem with having both. Certain subreddits heavily police content and only allow more engaging content, while other's don't. Some subreddits exist only for less-engaging content and vise-versa. Some subreddits exist for a specific topic and freely allow either type of content, which tends to result in lots of low-engagement content with fewer highly engaging posts, but not necessarily lower scoring highly engaging posts. I think there's just naturally less highly engaging content about virtually any given subject that has mass appeal.
With Reddit specifically, I don't think engagement alone specifically means that a post scores lower. I do think they have a tendency to do that, but not purely because of the engagement, just because of the content its self. I think the Rocket League subreddit I'm a part of is a good example of that. It's flooded with gifs of people scoring crazy goals and these always score highly, but there's still plenty of great highly scoring discussion threads, they're just less frequent. And I think that's OK, but if I'm being honest, there's just not that much discussion to be had about Rocket League at any given time. It's a video game. The discussions are just going to have natural peaks and valleys and will of course peak around times when a major tournament occurs, updates to the game happen, etc. People make occasional attempts to have discussions during "down time" and these are usually not quite as highly scored as other posts because this just doesn't have mass appeal. Those that like the content still tend to find it though, so I don't think anyone misses out.
I think we're basically conflating an observation with a problem to solve. Gifs aren't bad, they're just different, and serve a different purpose. I think the communities that split off to focus on a specific topic will naturally handle this issue themselves.
In the case of YouTube this may not be a bad thing. Yes, in the short run, it will hurt content creators. Not going to deny that. There may be a higher purpose that makes it worth it.
Do we want to support YouTube's business model? YouTube Red aside, almost all the revenue generated by YT and on YT is generated through ad tech. It's surveillance capitalism. That goes against some of what Tildes is about, right?
Imo, not sending traffic to the likes of YT is a plus: It starves the beast, and may force content creators to find alternative, more ethically sound hosts for their work.
Of course, that could only work if/when Tildes is large enough to make a dent. Until that time I'm fine with sending traffic to content creators on YT.
Right now Vimeo is probably the best alternative. It has the possibility for creators to have paying subscribers, and they can sell videos.
Other options would probably include PeerTube or DTube combined with something like Patreon. Content creators could find other revenue streams by attracting sponsors, for example.
Isn't this the same question we were all asking on Reddit before ~?
I'm not interested in the ideology of the site themselves. Video sources should receive the appropriate view for their content that is lost in the modern nature of this preference that takes away what they would have received. You're not wrong in such criticisms, but if people here are enjoying the content of a content creator then that creator should get what they deserve for it and not have that leeched by a poor phenomenon of user behaviour.
We don't disagree. I just think that compensating content creators doesn't necessarily outweigh any and all other concerns. If we agree that something has to change, change has to start somewhere. But this will only be an issue once Tildes is big enough to have an impact.
True. But looking ahead I can see a different thing occurring - Once Tildes is big enough to have an impact people will say "don't change it now because clearly the popularity of the site shows it's liked the way it is".
Good point. So you're saying my proposed measures should be implemented right now? ;)
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