Are YouTube playlists self-links?

December 5, 2007 8:01 PM

Is a YouTube playlist a self-link?

When I asked about this in an old MetaTalk thread there was no answer. Here's a use-case.

posted by cgc373 to Etiquette/Policy at 8:01 PM (27 comments total)

No.
posted by carsonb at 8:07 PM on December 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

I'll re-iterate my (beyond humble -- worthless, really) opinion as expressed in the thread: I like the convenience.
posted by sdodd at 8:09 PM on December 5, 2007

Depends.

If it is a you tube playlist of some guy loading ads on there or something, or promoting himself as an actor or musician, then certainly it is a self link.

If its a fanboy tribute to a professor, no.
posted by Ironmouth at 8:09 PM on December 5, 2007

I like this a lot better than having a list of 20 links to videos in the post itself.
posted by demiurge at 8:09 PM on December 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

I don't think so -- in this case of youtube playlists, it's just aggregating search results of videos uploaded by other users. It's a handy way to say "check out 25 videos about Pink Floyd here".

If the person had uploaded the videos or produced them, it would be more cut and dry.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 8:12 PM on December 5, 2007

Cool. If such playlists are not self-links, maybe we ought to encourage people who make these YouTube-heavy posts to use them.
posted by cgc373 at 8:14 PM on December 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

I kinda think it is, using the "if you're that close to the stuff you're linking, you're probably not in the best position to determine if it's link-worthy" guide. I've been tempted to upload and then link a couple of old animations I didn't see anywhere else but stopped myself because it seemed wrong for MeFi. I'm pretty sure Matt's said something similar in the past, but maybe that's changed.
posted by mediareport at 8:14 PM on December 5, 2007

I think that a lot of Youtube-heavy posts would be infinitely better if the poster had taken the time to compile a playlist.

I like to watch videos while doing other things, so having to open another video every five seconds is pretty annoying.

Having said that, what's up with the Julius Sumner Miller post? The playlist is the only way I can see the videos. When I follow this link, I just see an empty profile page.
posted by roll truck roll at 8:16 PM on December 5, 2007

On non-preview, never mind. Playlists =/= uploads, apparently. Not sure how a playlist created at a site like YouTube is that philosophically different from a blog post collecting links to videos others have uploaded, though.
posted by mediareport at 8:17 PM on December 5, 2007

mediareport, I think we're talking about two different issues here. BartFargo created a playlist using videos uploaded by someone else.
posted by roll truck roll at 8:17 PM on December 5, 2007

er... what mediareport said.
posted by roll truck roll at 8:18 PM on December 5, 2007

See my response here.

I've done it twice to organize a bunch of scattered videos. I'd like to think it was doing people a favor.
posted by puke & cry at 8:18 PM on December 5, 2007

And seconding roll truck roll, how does this guy have a completely blank profile?
posted by puke & cry at 8:20 PM on December 5, 2007

maybe we ought to encourage people who make these YouTube-heavy posts to use them

We've been trying for a while.
posted by Rhomboid at 8:28 PM on December 5, 2007

I wondered about the self-link aspect too, when I saw the "this is my playlist" in the FPP. But, I think it's a good way for the poster to organize multiple videos and, as others have said, it's better than having 50 separate links in one post.
posted by amyms at 9:44 PM on December 5, 2007

An argument against the playlist idea: the poster can subsquently edit the playlist, can't they? Now this can be good, in that a new clip that belongs with the others can easily be added; but it also has bad possiblities, eg the poster's account is deleted, for whatever reasons he/she removes these clips, or points them to something malicious or annoying.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 10:51 PM on December 5, 2007

I suppose that's the case for every webpage though, but on the other hand, playlists are supposed to be more like bookmark lists and scratchpads, ie more personal and more frequently edited ... aren't they?
posted by aeschenkarnos at 10:58 PM on December 5, 2007

Great point, aeschenkarnos. It's one thing when a site like the NY Times is responsible for maintaining the integrity of your link, but it seems rather another thing entirely for you to be required to keep that YouTube playlist intact forever, just because it's central to a MeFi post you made years back. It might get in your way at some point, and without thinking of its value to the archives, you'd just delete it.

I'm no fan of twenty-link YouTubery, but if anything, working on retrotagging early MeFi threads has made me mindful of the dangers of linkrot. Multiple links in a FPP are a form of redundancy, preserving 50% of the original intent, perhaps, after some links have crossed-over into the land of 404. A personal playlist is a single fragile link that could become invalid for any of the reasons aeschenkarnos mentions, and then the entire post becomes worthless (and the comments increasingly difficult to make sense of).
posted by mumkin at 11:51 PM on December 5, 2007

Damn, matt, no link to the 25 Pink Floyd videos?

crap.
posted by The Deej at 5:31 AM on December 6, 2007

OTOH, any random link to any random site has a 50% chance of breaking, and no one gives any consideration to that. Even if it's a big site: the NY Times works, but the NY Post and Yahoo only last a week or so.
posted by smackfu at 5:59 AM on December 6, 2007

What smackfu said. And especially with YouTube. There I'd say the breakage percentages might go above 50%. Stuff gets pulled offa there all the time.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:26 AM on December 6, 2007

I'm glad mathowie thinks this is OK, because it really is tremendously convenient and it doesn't seem to involve self-promotion.
posted by languagehat at 6:31 AM on December 6, 2007

It's maybe a hair worth splitting, however, that presenting a youtube centric with a link that says "playlist" rather than one that says "my playlist" may make fewer waves and turn fewer heads on the balance.

And to echo the concern about playlist mutability, I tend to prefer the idea of a post that has both a playlist and a few direct links to choice examples.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:49 AM on December 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

OTOH, if you don't say it's "my" playlist, the internet detective squad will think it's a big deal when they discover the real truth.
posted by smackfu at 8:46 AM on December 6, 2007

ASAIK there's no way to identify who created the playlist you're viewing. So you could throw up a playlist and play dumb if you wanted to. Unless I'm missing something.
posted by puke & cry at 11:36 AM on December 6, 2007

On non-preview, never mind. Playlists =/= uploads, apparently. Not sure how a playlist created at a site like YouTube is that philosophically different from a blog post collecting links to videos others have uploaded, though.

The traffic is going to YouTube whether or not the videos are being linked to in a playlist or individually. No individual stands to gain from linking to a YT playlist. Blog traffic definitely benefits an individual.
posted by oneirodynia at 12:00 PM on December 6, 2007

The more I think about it, I keep coming back to aeschenkarnos' question. It's possible to imagine someone getting pissed off and goatse-ing up their own playlist.

But then, most people don't have that much cleverness at the moment of flameout.
posted by roll truck roll at 2:32 PM on December 6, 2007