It has become clear that whenever a non-wammer's messy slapstick video gets posted on here, they get bombarded with nasty comments, get freaked out, then withdraw their content.

What does everyone think about a ban on posting innocent/unintentionally fetishistic clips on here? Might be a bit of extra work for the mods but effectively it could protect everyone involved, and not fan the flames of trolls.

That's probably for the best. I think at this point everybody knows who the heavy youtube searchers/posters are and have already bookmarked or subscribed to their sites. Posting unintentional WAM youtubes almost never ends well.

lol omg: the wam-ruining assholes have somehow managed to insert themselves into the clips themselves!! (watch this douche bag to see what mean. Apologies for the audio, but I've got a good feeling that this guy got a badly-needed ass kicking shortly after the clip.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yrEMXmLDTU

ban YouTube clips? What's next???!!!

Hmm... I'm not too sure if I really agree with this.

While there are a few jerks out there who will make the most inappropriate comments on vids posted to UMD, I don't think it makes sense to regulate UMD in such a way.

Besides, I'm not too sure how accurate is the statement on subscribing to heavy searchers sites... I have no idea who they are. And if there are such sites, wouldn't banning post on UMD simply cause the jerk to go look at the alternative sites? It doesn't really solve anything I think.

I agree it's drastic, but it might be worth it just to see what happens. One of the things these trolls like to do is call out UMD by name for circulating the youtubes on the forums. But if UMD doesn't circulate the videos, what are the trolls left to say?

It's strictly a cover-your-own ass move, and probably comes across as a little cowardly. But if it keeps the people involved in the videos from getting harassed by is (either directly or indirectly), it's probably worth it.

Something like plausible deniability eh? Sounds interesting... but what about the rest (and hopefully the majority) of us wammers who simply watch the vids without making a single comment? I'm sure a lot of us "rely" on UMD for the occasional WAM youtube vid popping up here and there, not everyone does a youtube search for "pies" every day.

How about if we limit submitting youtube videos to just posting the titles of them? No URL's, no usernames, just the title of the video. Then everybody will have enough info to search for it on their own. You run the risk of having having trolls who find these videos on these forum still finding them but at least the curious uploader won't see their vids tracked back to umd.net.

that's a good compromise. perhaps UMD moderators could disable the automatic embedding code on this forum. Or is there a way to reference a clip from a 3rd party location? eg when a user pastes a link into a special tool on UMD then it separates the media clip from the YouTube source?

What about using the "Make this post private so only registered viewers can see it" option. A lot of these trolls have been banned so they wouldn't be able to see the topic at all, thus denying them the link.

bw1, that's ingenious. I don't want to speak for Messmaster, but my knowledge of ancient 20th century Web design is sufficient to raise suspicions that it would be possible not only to filter access to archived videos but also to embedded links and even every unbroken string of forum post text that begins with "http://www.youtube.com/". This may not be an easy task, and it may not be a high priority on Messmaster's to-do list. However, I hope a this or a very similar idea makes that list. Unless I am mistaken about the viability of the proposal, this is the means to accomplish some real good here.

As I mull the suggestion, I thought of a permutation . . .

Perhaps rather than a filter for omitting YouTube URLs and such, the logged in vs. not logged in filter would simply omit all threads in which the first post contains a YouTube URL. This way outsiders would never even know about the content they were missing, and they would never be motivated to pester members in good standing about the mystery URL. The filter could also omit all threads with YouTube videos posted in them, but I fear outsiders seeing threads disappear could be more problematic than outsiders never being aware of YouTube-oriented threads in the first place. In the end, we would still be able to share, but with stealth relative to the perspective of the blight a few hopeless cases inflict on all of us.

Regards,
messydom

Either way, something has to be done. I vote for either banning them all together or making it so only registered users can see them like bw1 said. Will it stop these sick twisted fucks? No. But at least we as a community won't be even indirectly responsible for giving them leads or indirectly, for lack of a better word, "helping" them. Every time a link is posted here, some jackass almost immediately makes a rude comment on it. The timing is too good to be coincidence. It takes all of the fun out of it anyway and makes more of us nervous than anything else whenever a youtube find is posted. I, myself, have refused to post any links to youtube or any personal site that allows messages or comments to be made to the owner.

Another option, although it would be more of a hassle, would be to use keepvid or something similar to save the video and post it here from rapidshare or something. Everyone still gets to see the video, but there are no links to lead the trolls to the actual video.

It's terrible that it has come to this, but it has. Too many innocent people have been harassed and freaked out because of these trolls. Too many good videos have disappeared because either the user pulls them or closes their account because of these trolls. This community needs to take some responsibility and do something about it. We can't do much but that shouldn't stop us from doing what we can. Speed limits don't stop people from speeding, but they certainly help. Every negative stereotype about every group of people is either caused or reenforced by a few bad eggs, and wammers are no exception. At least taking some kind of a united stand against our bad eggs might help some of us sleep more soundly. It will help me at least.

I vote yes to the new rules.

The technical solutions proposed above sound like great ideas, if anyone has the time and energy to take them on. That's the right way to outwit the Youtube comment clowns.

But I'm strongly opposed to any prohibition on Youtube content here. That'd be letting the trolls win. The whole point of the UMD is to serve as a place where we can share this kind of material; preemptively crippling that down would be a great blow to the community. If there are haters, well, we just have to accept that.

EDIT: And of course, if people want to self-censor and keep their YT finds to themselves, c'est la vie. But I'm going to keep sharing, at least for now.

For starters, why don't we setup Youtube accounts and link the vids we want to share as "favorites". Then, post the information about that Youtube account.

Wouldn't this be a simple stop gap measure?

I am against the total banning of youtube for "unintentional" WAM but I do agree that if nothing is done lots of vids will be lost as users will pull them after their experience with the trolls. Some of the compromise solution seem reasonable but it requires some work on the IT end.

I'd vote no on actually making a new rule, I guess, since I think it'd be a bugger to police and it's really pretty silly to not be able to share YouTube clips here when they're public anyway and you can share them everywhere else in the world.

I do think those trolls are a big problem, though. It's a shame. I had 'em on my first channel, and that is why my second channel, set up with everything disabled under the "harnpitakyart" name, is the way it is.

Nessie

I think what bw1 said was the best. The fucking idiots come here everyday to get their fix and love to troll. Youtube is making people put on their google email and such to sign in... and hopefully they will go after the trolls but there is a lot of money involved in the company now

I don't think we should ban anything. Welcome to the internet.If you post something it is open for the world to see. Look at the girl from UCLA who made some off color comments about Asians. She is now a national(US) news story. If you have an issue then next time create a youtube account of your own, rip the video using one of the many firefox video download add-ons and then upload it your account and post it here as a private video. Then the person who created is shielded from the nasty comments.