Up to a day or two ago embedded videos were working, then they suddenly stopped with no explanation.
I don’t see that embedded videos are any more intrusive or problematic than embedded graphics or embedded news articles.
In fact, they have definite advantages.
It often happens (especially in Cafe Society) that someone says,
This is a great song: (Link to video)
or
This movie scene is an example of what I mean: (Link to video)
Now, I don’t particularly want to have to follow that link to YouTube just to find out what the video is, so that I can decide whether or not I want to watch it. Most of the time I don’t want to watch it anyway.
But if it’s embedded, I can see in a second whether I want to watch it or not. And if I do, I can watch it conveniently and instantly on the board without having to go elsewhere.
This is a plus with no downside that I can see. A video is no more intrusive on the board than a picture or a onebox article, and perhaps less so.
If anyone abuses embedded videos, moderators can deal with it as easily as with undesirable embedded pictures or any other undesirable content.
In fact it’s less abusive if you can see instantly that it’s an undesirable video, than if you click on an anonymous link and end up watching an undesirable video.
Can @TubaDiva and the other moderators please weigh in on this?
The subject of graphics in general is in discussion with the Development Team.
Since we are still too busy shaking out bugs and fixing other issues that need correcting, this is not top of list. But we will get to it when we can. It will take a while.
It has not yet been decided if ultimately graphics will be allowed, or, if so, to what degree. We have already seen how this can be abused and it’s a subject of concern.
When this is decided and the policy is implemented, we will let you know.
I posted what I thought was going to be a link to a video, then sawthat it actually embedded the video. This is a cool feature, no one has to click a video, or a link, if they don’t want to. Please retain that functionality.
It really is a good feature with very little downside. Provided the Dope decides to allow pictures, which they absolutely should, they should also allow the video links.
Anything could be abused, hopefully this small feature useful would not be.
Off course keeping pics & previews out of some forums would make sense. Maybe GD. Politics & The Pit.
The Cafe, Game Room & Thread Games should absolutely allow it.
The rest is up for debate of course. I would say allow in GQ, but instruct not to just post a pic or preview, explain and show. Same idea as just a link is a poor post in GQ.
I sure hope they are NOT allowed. Twitter used to be tolerable when it was just text. Now it is 90% images and videos, and has turned into a cacophony of chaos that I had to completely abandon. I hope this place stays a little more erudite than that.
I wonder if it would be possible to have skins that allow video and image embeds, and ones that disallow (or hide) with the same overall board settings.
I’m liking the new board overall and think that it’s going to end up being a big improvement, but lots of features should be a user settings instead of finding the right theme.
“Make it a user setting” is not feasible. The SDMB is running on pre-made software that is part of a larger ecosystem set up to allow multiple different boards to run the same software in its smaller ecosystem. The SDMB can’t just add user settings, or request that the board software developers do so.
It’s like saying “the water that comes into my house from the municipal water system should be lemonade if I want it to be.” That involves a lot of work at a high level that nobody else is asking for (otherwise it’d already be an option.) What’s easier for the homeowner to do is to get a kit that is custom to your home and works at the home level to give you the option in your own home to make some taps lemonade taps and some not lemonade taps.
That’s what I’m proposing. Turn on the embeds (normal water) and make a skin that people who want to hide embeds (lemonade) use. Someone has already made a couple tweaked SDMB skins. It’s possible. Just give them some time.
(Watch me eat my words when a “turn off embedded content” option turns up in Settings lol)
We had embedded video on the old board. All we did was post the link and the video box appeared. It didn’t auto play. There was an option in Tapatalk to enable or disable this feature.
Now the functionality is taken away at the new board?
No, we didn’t have embedded video on the old board. All we had was a link. Tapatalk may have somehow created the illusion that it was embedded, but all we got was a link, and if the poster was following the rules a description.
