Proposed feature: Voting for proposed videos
Ian Ozsvald
One question I face myself when I think about making a new series is - how do I know if anyone wants to learn about this topic? Is there a large userbase of potential viewers? Can I educate lots of people? Should I cover something else? Is my time better spent covering something else?
The answer I think is that we should let authors *ask* the userbase to vote on a proposed video series. I'm thinking that something like the following would appear on a video page in a highlighted box for logged-in users:
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Proposal for you to Vote For or Against
Proposal: Video series for Python Introductory Programming, covering 1) writing Python code 2) writing maintainable code 3) doing something useful with urllib2 to query the web
By: Ian Ozsvald (author of 53 videos)
Optional Tickbox: I might pay to see this series
Vote For the above [button] or vote I'm Not Interested [button].
Results so far: 23 votes For (12 for Pay) and 12 Not Interested
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Anyone who is logged in and is in the right category (e.g. Python or Beginners for the above Proposal) would get to vote once for the video. The proposal has a short life e.g. 30 days. Once voted (For or Against) the box disappears. Authors would only make a Proposal infrequently so users wouldn't be inconvenienced.
The results are mailed to the author, anyone who votes can be contacted by the author so they could ask questions (e.g. inviting those that are interested to discuss the idea in the Group). The set of Interested people can be mailed once the series is ready - they're a ready-made audience who will be eager to see the videos.
I think this is a nice idea - I've been toying with it for months. If I get support for this I'd consider making it a priority. I've added it to the wiki:
http://wiki.showmedo.com/index.php/Feature_Requests#Proposals_for_Voting
The question is - do you think this is a particularly useful time-investment for us to make? Would it help you decide what videos to make? Do you like the idea of having a ready-made audience that you can contact *before* you make the videos? Is the idea of refining your idea over several Proposals a useful thing?
Hoping you like the idea,
Ian.
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Horst JENS
> The answer I think is that we should let authors *ask* the userbase to
> vote on a proposed video series. I'm thinking that something like
> the
Hi Ian,
just want to say that this model would not work for me. Reason is that i
never think one second before making a video about *what* kind of video
the audience would love to see.
All i think about is about *what* kind of video i can and want to make.
So, i choose i a thematic that i feel clever enough to explain and
(maybe) i look if there are already good videos about it.
Of course situation would be different for sages with an broad field of
expertise in different topics who just can't decide wich pearl of wisdom
to throw into the masses ;->
cheers,
-Horst
Jeff Rush
>
> The question is - do you think this is a particularly useful time-investment for us to make?
> Would it help you decide what videos to make? Do you like the idea of
having a ready-made
> audience that you can contact *before* you make the videos? Is the idea of
refining your
> idea over several Proposals a useful thing?
I think this is a good idea. I would certainly make use of it - I have many
ideas for talks I can cover but don't know which ones are most important.
-Jeff
Ian Ozsvald
i.
Ian Ozsvald
I want to understand how to reach a large audience for one of the several topics I could present and I want to understand which sub-topics rate for high-interest. If I can do that then I can probably demonstrate a market for certain topics...if I can do that then I can encourage others to make and sell high-quality tutorials which puts many more useful tutorials in all of our hands. That's the plan, it'll keep me busy for a while.
As I said to Jeff, this feature is on my list, we'll see how it goes.
i.
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