Notability View Requirements

[Tllmbrg]

I feel like that depends a bit on the type of content, which is why I brought up different length of a series.
For a video series with a few episodes or a movie-length YouTube video, I would be inclined to accept lower counts than for a 2-minute meme clip.

I feel like we'd be splitting hairs and people would start bickering over the category of content for whatever they want to index. Plus I really don't see the harm in letting some short content meme-centric media to get in if there's stuff to actually index.

 

[FinePoint]

I'm gonna just point out that Markiplier, one of the biggest YouTube content creators ever, has view counts generally varying from 1 mil to 3 mil, with the rare game getting over 5 million.

Some of his Five Nights At Freddy's content doesn't even break 5 mil, and the guy has 38.6 Million subscribers. 5 million is a genuinely asinine number to ask for when some of the top dogs on the platform don't even break it a lot of the time.

I think it makes perfect sense if the average gameplay video from top creators doesn't qualify.

Very large projects will receive far more views than their average.

Anyway, I looked at Markiplier's list of top videos, and I stopped counting after over TWO HUNDRED of them had over 5 million views.

If he made short stories instead we'd have over two hundred qualifying verses from him alone, if anything 5 million isn't strict enough.

 

[Tllmbrg]

I think it makes perfect sense if the average gameplay video from top creators doesn't qualify.

Very large projects will receive far more views than their average.

Anyway, I looked at Markiplier's list of top videos, and I stopped counting after over TWO HUNDRED of them had over 5 million views.

If he made short stories instead we'd have over two hundred qualifying verses from him alone, if anything 5 million isn't strict enough.

Buddy that's bloody Markiplier, one of the most popular YouTubers ever with him having thousands of videos. The guy's reach is so vast that Iron Lung managed to get his movie to make over x7 its 3 million budget while not actively marketing it at all.
He is not at all proof for any kind of standard for this stuff, this is like if we based what literature is allowed based on ************* Shakespeare.

Getting 1 million views on a video puts you above 99% of the most popular video hosting site, a site so influential in modern day that companies will pay millions for ads to be listed there, a site that Google themselves bought for how important it is. In what world is being in that realm not notable enough????

 

[DaReaperMan]

I think it makes perfect sense if the average gameplay video from top creators doesn't qualify.

Very large projects will receive far more views than their average.

Anyway, I looked at Markiplier's list of top videos, and I stopped counting after over TWO HUNDRED of them had over 5 million views.

If he made short stories instead we'd have over two hundred qualifying verses from him alone, if anything 5 million isn't strict enough.

Now count Usain Bolt for average human speed. Or Tolkien for book popularity. Or World of Warcraft for MMO popularity.

Or, now, go through the entire site. Anything that's not 5 million views, is a gaming video, or is anything else, cross out.

Put blutnly: 1 million views is a major milestone on a site where 50K views is hard to get. Stop judging off of what Tiktok does.

 

[DaReaperMan]

Just to prove the point...

https://youtube.com/@worstpremadeever

856K subs, regular uploads, not one video over 5 million. Get off of Tiktok, and come back to YouTube. You don't shit out stolen slop and get 100 million views here.

 

[DontTalkDT]

I feel like we'd be splitting hairs and people would start bickering over the category of content for whatever they want to index. Plus I really don't see the harm in letting some short content meme-centric media to get in if there's stuff to actually index.

A view on a 20 second clip just represents less actual engagement with the thing than someone having watch a 90 minute movie. Getting high view numbers on a Youtube Shorts is almost certainly easier than on a long-form Youtube video and has a whole different cultural impact.
The goal should be that our rules are set such that roughly the same lower boundary of notability applies for each medium. So if the number of views correlates at a different rate to notability for different media, platforms or formats, it would make sense to have different view requirements.

Edit: I will add that I'm not all too insistent on the 5 million number, but I don't think it makes much sense to judge long running series and 5 minute oneshots by the same view metric.

 

[FinePoint]

Buddy that's bloody Markiplier, one of the most popular YouTubers ever with him having thousands of videos.

I'm not the one who first brought up Markiplier. Reaper was the one who said he struggled to get 5 million views. I was just pointing out how that isn't remotely true, he has hundreds of videos over 5 million views.

There's over 20 million videos uploaded every day on YouTube, and the top 1% of those videos would still be 200,000 videos.
The top 0.1% would be 20,000.

If you extrapolate, every year that's over seven billion videos uploaded. Even if we thought our maximum was to potentially add 1000 verses per year, we'd have to only take the top 0.00001% of videos.

We're talking about a site that contains a quarter of the planet as its user-base, that utilizes an algorithm that can push content regardless of how popular its creator is. Five million views is not a lot to ask for to be notable. There are likely hundreds of thousands of videos above that bracket.

 

[Tllmbrg]

I'm not the one who first brought up Markiplier. Reaper was the one who said he struggled to get 5 million views. I was just pointing out how that isn't remotely true, he has hundreds of videos over 5 million views.

There's over 20 million videos uploaded every day on YouTube, and the top 1% of those videos would still be 200,000 videos.
The top 0.1% would be 20,000.

If you extrapolate, every year that's over seven billion videos uploaded. Even if we thought our maximum was to potentially add 1000 verses per year, we'd have to only take the top 0.00001% of videos.

We're talking about a site that contains a quarter of the planet as its user-base, that utilizes an algorithm that can push content regardless of how popular its creator is. Five million views is not a lot to ask for to be notable. There are likely hundreds of thousands of videos above that bracket.

Okay first of all, the figure I have wasn't for uploads per year but for all of them together.
Secondly, even if what you say is true, so what? Those are still relevant videos, and in fact this cut-off point would murder a lot of stuff that are well known but otherwise doesn't meet the requirement.

Take for example Monument Mythos, the highest episode on it doesn't crack this, and that's despite being one of the most influential analog horror series on YouTube, a genre that is by no means a fringe thing (What with it having its own Wikipedia page, channels like Film Theory covering it, and having an extremely popular Death Battle MU in Nixon vs Dr. Manhattan).
Genuinely this figure would eliminate all YouTube content outside a select few things (Like Glitch Production shows or extreme outlier cases like Mandela Catalogue, which outside its first episode getting 10 million views, has below 3 million views for following episodes).

 

[DaReaperMan]

I'm not the one who first brought up Markiplier. Reaper was the one who said he struggled to get 5 million views. I was just pointing out how that isn't remotely true, he has hundreds of videos over 5 million views.

Also, how old are those videos?

I went through the last year and the lion's share weren't 5 mil, they were within the range I gave.

Also, I said "rarely", not "struggles". Struggles, is channel's that don't have 1 mil subs trying to make 5 mil videos. Rarely is someone with 38 million getting one every couple months or so, even on content on series that made his channel explode to begin with..

There's over 20 million videos uploaded every day on YouTube, and the top 1% of those videos would still be 200,000 videos.
The top 0.1% would be 20,000.

If you extrapolate, every year that's over seven billion videos uploaded. Even if we thought our maximum was to potentially add 1000 verses per year, we'd have to only take the top 0.00001% of videos.

Now how many are actually indexable and not podcasts, streams, gaming, challenges, copyright-using stuff, basically everything not directly related to the problem at hand. In fact, let's look at Hunter: the Parenting, the successor to If The Emperor Had a Text-To-Speech Device, which was explosively popular in the Warhammer 40,000 fandom.

Highest viewed video: 2.1 million views.

Let's now look to TTS itself, should break 5 mil on any episode, right? I mean, it was one of the main reason the 40K fanbase hardcore backlashed GW's policy with content not made by it!

Wrong, the highest viewed video is 4.3 Million.

We're talking about a site that contains a quarter of the planet as its user-base, that utilizes an algorithm that can push content regardless of how popular its creator is. Five million views is not a lot to ask for to be notable, period.

I just dropped two notable series in their respective fandoms, series that have pre-existing fandoms and don't have to build those fandoms from nothing, that spit in the face of this.

If you are not affiliated to Glitch Productions, you generally don't make 5 million. I can name analog horror series from semi-popular youtubers like Pastra(Dreams of an Insomniac) that don't even break 500K in views for any episode.

Mandela Catalogue and Walten Files are the only two I can find that crack the 5 mil, and those are fringe cases.

 

[FinePoint]

Now how many are actually indexable and not podcasts, streams, gaming, challenges, copyright-using stuff, basically everything not directly related to the problem at hand. In fact, let's look at Hunter: the Parenting, the successor to If The Emperor Had a Text-To-Speech Device, which was explosively popular in the Warhammer 40,000 fandom.

"If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device is a satire series with basis on the expansive lore of Warhammer 40,000 and the many steps and misteps that Games Workshop has went through developing it... Used without permission. No challenge to their status intended. All Rights Reserved to their respective owners."

We don't feature fan-fiction, even in video format.

We also require that things have some actual mainstream relevance, not just in a specific fandom or in powerscaling.

 

[Crabwhale]

I'm not the one who first brought up Markiplier. Reaper was the one who said he struggled to get 5 million views. I was just pointing out how that isn't remotely true, he has hundreds of videos over 5 million views.

There's over 20 million videos uploaded every day on YouTube, and the top 1% of those videos would still be 200,000 videos.
The top 0.1% would be 20,000.

If you extrapolate, every year that's over seven billion videos uploaded. Even if we thought our maximum was to potentially add 1000 verses per year, we'd have to only take the top 0.00001% of videos.

We're talking about a site that contains a quarter of the planet as its user-base, that utilizes an algorithm that can push content regardless of how popular its creator is. Five million views is not a lot to ask for to be notable. There are likely hundreds of thousands of videos above that bracket.

I feel like this assessment is disingenuous because it's not taking into account the fact that the number of videos that have a million views being even that high is because the site has been around for over two decades now, and many of them have had many years to accumulate them.

It's also not taking into account at all that many of the videos that would be relevant to our purposes probably encompass a tiny, TINY minority of said videos. Wholly original works of fiction presented in a narrative format as videos of considerable enough length to feature things worth being indexed? I only have anecdotal evidence but this is an extremely niche category.

Furthermore as YouTube expands more and more, getting into that category will be even harder. 5 million views is an absolutely asinine number to shoot for here.

Also, how old are those videos?

I went through the last year and the lion's share weren't 5 mil, they were within the range I gave.

Also, I said "rarely", not "struggles". Struggles, is channel's that don't have 1 mil subs trying to make 5 mil videos. Rarely is someone with 38 million getting one every couple months or so, even on content on series that made his channel explode to begin with..

Now how many are actually indexable and not podcasts, streams, gaming, challenges, copyright-using stuff, basically everything not directly related to the problem at hand. In fact, let's look at Hunter: the Parenting, the successor to If The Emperor Had a Text-To-Speech Device, which was explosively popular in the Warhammer 40,000 fandom.

Highest viewed video: 2.1 million views.

Let's now look to TTS itself, should break 5 mil on any episode, right? I mean, it was one of the main reason the 40K fanbase hardcore backlashed GW's policy with content not made by it!

Wrong, the highest viewed video is 4.3 Million.

I just dropped two notable series in their respective fandoms, series that have pre-existing fandoms and don't have to build those fandoms from nothing, that spit in the face of this.

If you are not affiliated to Glitch Productions, you generally don't make 5 million. I can name analog horror series from semi-popular youtubers like Pastra(Dreams of an Insomniac) that don't even break 500K in views for any episode.

Mandela Catalogue and Walten Files are the only two I can find that crack the 5 mil, and those are fringe cases.

Reaper, you have barely made a single concise point in this entire thread, mentioning let's plays and parodies of established IPs when neither of those are applicable anyway, and as far as I can tell by your first message you didn't get permission to speak either. Please stop talking.

 

[DaReaperMan]

Reaper, you have barely made a single concise point in this entire thread, mentioning let's plays and parodies of established IPs when neither of those are applicable anyway, and as far as I can tell by your first message you didn't get permission to speak either. Please stop talking.

Fair enough on the consisce points thing, though I technically am staff and I can ping as an Image Helper.

 

[FinePoint]

I feel like this assessment is disingenuous because it's not taking into account the fact that the number of videos that have a million views being even that high is because the site has been around for over two decades now, and many of them have had many years to accumulate them.

Well, is our intention for the view requirement to be for a certain time-period, or are we setting it as a minimum for the property's lifetime?

That the amount of high-view videos that would actually qualify as a 'verse' is seemingly small is valid. I wouldn't be upset if the number were lowered to one million either.

Ultimately, though, I would prefer if we retained the ability to evaluate the surrounding context. Considering just the view count has problems I think, but if we were forced to just blindly look at that specific statistic I think it would have to be quite high to avoid things being added which only ever accumulated views due to the algorithm rather than actually having any cultural staying power.

 

[FinePoint]

Fair enough on the consisce points thing, though I technically am staff and I can ping as an Image Helper.

As far as I know, Image Helpers do have permission to comment on staff threads.

Still, it would be helpful if you could find any examples of notable verses that would actually qualify for other reasons. Also, so far it feels like every example people give below 5 million views is something I've never heard of, while every example above is something I have.

I understand that's not exactly evidence of everything, I may just live under a rock, but it does make it harder for it to change my mind.

Is there anything currently on the wiki that started as a YouTube Series with less than five million views?

 

[DaReaperMan]

As far as I know, Image Helpers do have permission to comment on staff threads.

Still, it would be helpful if you could find any examples of notable verses that would actually qualify for other reasons. Also, so far it feels like every example people give below 5 million views is something I've never heard of, while every example above is something I have.

I understand that's not exactly evidence of everything, I may just live under a rock, but it does make it harder for it to change my mind.

Is there anything currently on the wiki that started as a YouTube Series with less than five million views?

technically Hunter: The Parenting, but World of Darkness' rules on stuff like that render it actually canon.

But uh, Monument Mythos, Epithet Erased, Stickworld, The Daily Object Show, The Big Lez Show(I list it cause it was introduced to the wiki in 2018)

 

[FinePoint]

But uh, Monument Mythos, Epithet Erased, Stickworld, The Big Lez Show(I list it cause it was introduced to the wiki in 2018)

And how many views do the first episodes have for these?

 

[Tllmbrg]

And how many views do the first episodes have for these?

Monument Mythos's peak is 2.3 million
Epithet Erased peaks at 3.2 million.
Stickworld's first episode is at 1.7 million but it has other episodes way above 5 million.

There are also verses like ONE that peak at 3.2 million as well.

 

[DaReaperMan]

And how many views do the first episodes have for these?

All over at least 1 million.

Daily Object Show: 1.3 million
Stickworld 1.7 million
Big Lez Show(July 2022): 4.7 million, it currently has 6.4 mil, but again, it gained said views since before 2018.
Epithet Erased: 3 million
Monument Mythos 2.3 million

 

[FinePoint]

Monument Mythos's peak is 2.3 million
Epithet Erased peaks at 3.2 million.
Stickworld's first episode is at 1.7 million but it has other episodes way above 5 million.

There are also verses like ONE that peak at 3.2 million as well.

Alright. Some of those actually have significant support too.

I suppose I'll formally concede that 1 million makes more sense than 5 million then- but I don't see a reason to go any lower at this point.

Also, it seems like Epithet Erased was actually officially published on VRV, so it doesn't really count as a YouTube series.

 

[Tllmbrg]

Also, it seems like Epithet Erased was actually officially published on VRV, so it doesn't really count as a YouTube series.

You asked for stuff that started as YouTube shows, so.

 

[DaReaperMan]

Yeah I agree that any lower than 1 million is not good at all. I just don't agree with raising that number of views for YouTube specifically.

Otherwise, I 100% agree with more defining our standards when it comes to internet stuff,

 

[FinePoint]

You asked for stuff that started as YouTube shows, so.

Well I don't know the entire history, but the sources I could find said it premiered on VRV.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

Just to prove the point...

https://youtube.com/@worstpremadeever

856K subs, regular uploads, not one video over 5 million. Get off of Tiktok, and come back to YouTube. You don't shit out stolen slop and get 100 million views here.

It is possible that a channel with 865k subs would not be considered sufficient for a verse page. I would even consider that the most likely outcome. Similarly, we would not consider literally every single video produced by Markiplier to be a cultural icon.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

All over at least 1 million.

Daily Object Show: 1.3 million
Stickworld 1.7 million
Big Lez Show(July 2022): 4.7 million, it currently has 6.4 mil, but again, it gained said views since before 2018.
Epithet Erased: 3 million
Monument Mythos 2.3 million

It's worth noting, at least, that The Big Lez Show also runs on network television.

For the rest of these, barring the Monument Mythos, I would be totally fine with classifying them as "not really relevant".

I shot out 5 mil as a kneejerk value because 1 mil seems low. I don't really care if we lower it, I just disagree with what we have currently.

 

[Tllmbrg]

For the rest of these, barring the Monument Mythos, I would be totally fine with classifying them as "not really relevant".

I mean that feels a bit absurd to me, especially with series like ONE (Where it's a very popular show in the Object Show circles) or Epithet Erased (Which is helmed by a successful YouTuber, alongside having novels for itself).

Like idk, 1 million is considered a huge milestone for any YouTuber that achieves it, would be weird to act like it isn't.

 

[DaReaperMan]

It's worth noting, at least, that The Big Lez Show also runs on network television.

You know, I kinda forgot that, fair enough.

For the rest of these, barring the Monument Mythos, I would be totally fine with classifying them as "not really relevant".

I shot out 5 mil as a kneejerk value because 1 mil seems low. I don't really care if we lower it, I just disagree with what we have currently.

How I see it is this: on YouTube, 1 million views even for what is essentially indie television is pretty uncommon to begin with unless given years to build that amount, and YouTube DOES count rewatches towards that view count if I am not mistaken. So views might be a metric we shouldn't go off of to begin with.

My idea I just thought up is we could go by if they have a halfway-functional wiki and how many members they got doing things. But that does have problems as wiki-goers are like 1-2% of the viewerbase in my experience, so that could easily just fall flat.

 

[Random-Helper323]

What about the difference between a verse that exists as one video versus a verse that exists as a series of ten or more? Treating these differently has been referenced, but nothing about specifics.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

I mean that feels a bit absurd to me, especially with series like ONE (Where it's a very popular show in the Object Show circles) or Epithet Erased (Which is helmed by a successful YouTuber, alongside having novels for itself).

Like idk, 1 million is considered a huge milestone for any YouTuber that achieves it, would be weird to act like it isn't.

Epithet Erased already reaches our notoriety standards by other means, I didn't mention it because it was already pointed out. It is entirely plausible that a popular object show isn't notable enough for the wiki-- this is not exactly a mainstream genre.

What about the difference between a verse that exists as one video versus a verse that exists as a series of ten or more? Treating these differently has been referenced, but nothing about specifics.

I would be content to have a different standard (perhaps 1,000,000 average views, or a single entry at 3-5 million views?)

 

[Tllmbrg]

I would be content to have a different standard (perhaps 1,000,000 average views, or a single entry at 3-5 million views?)

I still think what was going on before (1 million view for an entry) works fine, I feel like we're just being stingy here over popularity when 1 million for any video I'd just a huge deal.

 

[Tllmbrg]

Also I'm pretty sure the average requirement is unironically the harder one to achieve.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

Also I'm pretty sure the average requirement is unironically the harder one to achieve.

Yes, but it allows some that might not otherwise make it.

I'll use the example of the Big Lez Show, even though it is technically allowed regardless due to being formally published.

It certainly exceeds the average of 1 million views per episode on YouTube. It averages at about 3.3 million views.

We're not trying to make it all inclusive, we're trying to account for edge cases that nevertheless display significant sustained popularity, even if they fail to meet the base target value.

 

[Tllmbrg]

We're not trying to make it all inclusive, we're trying to account for edge cases that nevertheless display significant sustained popularity, even if they fail to meet the base target value.

I think the problem is that the current metrics just let in stuff supported by companies or one hit wonders from YouTube (Or well Markplier's stuff I guess).

Monument Mythos which you yourself said is "culturally relevant" qualifies for neither of these (It peaks at 2.3 million views, and it does not average 1 millions views).
Like, should we allow literally any video on YouTube? Obviously not, but the current standards you're proposing are absurdly harsh and ignore how notable even getting 1 million views for something that can actually be indexed on the site is.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

This is just patently not true. I don't know why you're pretending as though only lightning-in-a-bottle, once-ever videos reach 3 to 5 million views.

Monument Mythos itself is an edge case. If you have ideas beyond "just don't change a thing", I'd hear them! But so far you're just complaining about any idea pitched. I've been trying to offer methods to account for things: the 1,000,000 view average, reducing my proposal from 5 to 3. But I do firmly believe 1,000,000 views at all is incredibly lax. Nothing about this is "absurdly harsh" and I find it difficult to work with you where nothing is treated as being even basically reasonable to discuss.

 

[Agnaa]

Income: Income is relevant, and I do agree it is a facet by which we can judge these things. It is worth noting that I was brought here by a more recent case, where the verse seems to have not-a-lot of impact, but many of those consuming it are paying on its Patreon. So I want to note for the thread that things like Patreon mean a relatively small body of supporters might keep afloat a franchise. This means it might have essentially no importance or wide relevance to it at all, but might still yield, say, $6,000/mo via donations from its small community.

The vast majority of published books would've made less than a series which can hold $6k/mo for multiple years. These books would have no "importance or wide relevance". It isn't actually rare for modestly-large TV programs to get less than 200k viewers per instalment.

I see our standards as aiming to keep out the utter chaff, rather than only trying to index the most major cultural touchstones. Otherwise, we would be applying significantly more strict criteria to things published through traditional sources.

I do not think our standards on independent productions should be orders of magnitude more strict than that which weak official productions hit.

Especially when we get to weird stuff like this:

Also, it seems like Epithet Erased was actually officially published on VRV, so it doesn't really count as a YouTube series.

Epithet Erased is an animated adaptation of a series of TTRPG sessions a mid-tier YouTuber did some time earlier. He couldn't fund the production by himself, so he asked Random Shitfuck Streaming Service #74 (known as VRV) to front a bunch of money, in exchange for it appearing on their service two weeks early, while the YouTuber retained full creative control over the series and the IP.

It was the biggest hit on VRV by far.

VRV shut down 4 years later.

Y'all seem to be defending these barriers of high view counts so that we only truly have things with Cultural Relevance, but Epithet Erased outstripped everything on its original streaming service by far, and it would fail to meet that barrier. By giving priority to services like that, you bring on properties that demonstrably have far less cultural relevance.

But hey, if that released first on another streaming service model is valid... would YouTuber-run streaming services like Nebula, Floatplane, 2nd try, and Dropout confer the same status on any of their (admittedly likely not) indexable releases?

I don't think it makes much sense to judge long running series and 5 minute oneshots by the same view metric.

I'm sympathetic to this, it just makes our standards a lot more complex.

EDIT: I wonder if we could handle this with a calculator. Let people input various factors we consider relevant (length, medium, age, language; as some examples), we'll have some particular rates behind the scenes that incorporate that, and spit out average/single entry targets that need to be hit.

Is there anything currently on the wiki that started as a YouTube Series with less than five million views?

Another example is Tao (and then we'll be okay) which is currently at 5.6 million views but likely had fewer when I added it in 2019.

---

This sort of tension in how we treat different things is also exemplified by indie games. We don't have any rules precluding the inclusion of Tactical Nexus, a steam game that has 235 reviews from the 7 years it's been out, and developer-released figures show it has had 12,908 players in its entire history, with sales averaging $628 a month. If the developers themselves didn't release those figures, would we allow it? Heck, would we still allow it in spite of that?

I think we're far looser for these than we are for indie ventures in other mediums. I'd say, we're strictest with self-published video, next-strictest with WNs, then most other media faces a bit less scrutiny, with the least scrutiny going to indie games.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

The vast majority of published books would've made less than a series which can hold $6k/mo for multiple years. These books would have no "importance or wide relevance". It isn't actually rare for modestly-large TV programs to get less than 200k viewers per instalment.

I see our standards as aiming to keep out the utter chaff, rather than only trying to index the most major cultural touchstones. Otherwise, we would be applying significantly more strict criteria to things published through traditional sources.

I do not think our standards on independent productions should be orders of magnitude more strict than that which weak official productions hit.

200k viewers at one time. This is an enormous amount. But then those TV programs are reshown, hosted on streaming services, etc. The book point is fair, but we're discussing this on the basis that formal publication bypasses our expectations for relevance.

And sure. But we seem to disagree on what is "chaff". Tllmbrg on Discord suggested we would dismiss things of "low production value" rather than based on views; I see views as a good way of cutting said chaff, and I think a lot of very valid verses are made with low production value. Most verses I represent wouldn't be a "cultural touchstone". So please do understand that I think we want the same goal here, but we do not see eye to eye on where the goalposts are.

Epithet Erased is an animated adaptation of a series of TTRPG sessions a mid-tier YouTuber did some time earlier. He couldn't fund the production by himself, so he asked Random Shitfuck Streaming Service #74 (known as VRV) to front a bunch of money, in exchange for it appearing on their service two weeks early, while the YouTuber retained full creative control over the series and the IP.

It was the biggest hit on VRV by far.

VRV shut down 4 years later.

Y'all seem to be defending these barriers of high view counts so that we only truly have things with Cultural Relevance, but Epithet Erased outstripped everything on its original streaming service by far, and it would fail to meet that barrier. By giving priority to services like that, you bring on properties that demonstrably have far less cultural relevance.

But hey, if that released first on another streaming service model is valid... would YouTuber-run streaming services like Nebula, Floatplane, 2nd try, and Dropout confer the same status on any of their (admittedly likely not) indexable releases?

Epithet Erased's views are split, though. You yourself have explained how. it was on VRV, where it was the biggest thing on the platform. We can't exactly judge it by YouTube alone, anyways.

I'd be fine with any formal publisher (in this case, your streaming platform) conferring valid status, yeah.

 

[Agnaa]

200k viewers at one time. This is an enormous amount. But then those TV programs are reshown, hosted on streaming services, etc.

Yeah fair.

The book point is fair, but we're discussing this on the basis that formal publication bypasses our expectations for relevance.

My point being, that if we have formal publication bypass those expectations, our expectations for relevance should be around that of the 25th percentile for the published material (so, 25% of published materials would fail that, but we'd still let them in anyway). I'm worried that our expectations are more around the 98th percentile, and I'd like to move it closer to my ideal.

(Although, even my ideal, I think, could nuke an astonishing amount of indie game series on our site)

And sure. But we seem to disagree on what is "chaff". Tllmbrg on Discord suggested we would dismiss things of "low production value" rather than based on views; I see views as a good way of cutting said chaff, and I think a lot of very valid verses are made with low production value.

I agree with you.

Epithet Erased's views are split, though. You yourself have explained how. it was on VRV, where it was the biggest thing on the platform. We can't exactly judge it by YouTube alone, anyways.

Sure, but I think most would've discovered it off YouTube, although I don't really have a way to demonstrate that, now. Closest I have is how the trailer announcing that the first episode was out on VRV has 500k views now. I don't think there were millions of views only occurring on VRV.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

Sure, but I think most would've discovered it off YouTube, although I don't really have a way to demonstrate that, now. Closest I have is how the trailer announcing that the first episode was out on VRV has 500k views now. I don't think there were millions of views only occurring on VRV.

I think trailers tend to lag compared to the actual content, no? And surely VRV would have had an algorithm serving things, especially this if it was the most popular piece on there.

Regardless. For YouTube, I still think 1,000,000 is really low. But, I'm open to having some wiggle room in here: do you have a particular proposal you might have in mind, then?

 

[Agnaa]

I think trailers tend to lag compared to the actual content, no? And surely VRV would have had an algorithm serving things, especially this if it was the most popular piece on there.

It was the most popular piece due to it doing well on YouTube, driving people to subscribe to VRV to see episodes early.

Regardless. For YouTube, I still think 1,000,000 is really low. But, I'm open to having some wiggle room in here: do you have a particular proposal you might have in mind, then?

I'd think 50k-100k, particularly for creative projects, already trims off the vast vast majority.

If we decide to have different thresholds for different kinds of content, as DT suggested, I'd make that the baseline for 20+ minute stuff, scaling to 250k for ~5 minute stuff, and 2.5 mil for ~30 second stuff.

 

[Tllmbrg]

I'd think 50k-100k, particularly for creative projects, already trims off the vast vast majority.

If we decide to have different thresholds for different kinds of content, as DT suggested, I'd make that the baseline for 20+ minute stuff, scaling to 250k for ~5 minute stuff, and 2.5 mil for ~30 second stuff.

While we have been primarily focused on YouTube, I would ask specifically for the last figure if it would apply to websites like TikTok where they primarily do short form content?
Ashur Gharavi's The Mourner series has three videos going above 1 million (First episode being 4.4 million even), with the rest being between 600k to 900k meanwhile on their YouTube channel the compliations are not even cracking 200k.

 

[Agnaa]

While we have been primarily focused on YouTube, I would ask specifically for the last figure if it would apply to websites like TikTok where they primarily do short form content?
Ashur Gharavi's The Mourner series has three videos going above 1 million (First episode being 4.4 million even), with the rest being between 600k to 900k meanwhile on their YouTube channel the compliations are not even cracking 200k.

Yeah, I'd only intend the number to change if there were some systemic concerns in how views were counted (i.e. Facebook inflating video view numbers during the 2010s).