After a slightly bumpy start (I didn't realize that all new videos uploaded appear on the front page and uploaded a whole bunch which got some rather pointed reactions...) which were all smoothed over by morning, I have been schmoozing on Vloggerheads.

I also joined Moar but haven't done much there. I have been frying my fish at VH.

In fact, I have been finding that VH is the community that disappeared from YouTube and is swiftly disappearing from LV. So far, so good. Like any good neighbourhood, there is always the potential that the strip club will open up next door and we will all be looking for somewhere else to call home. C'est la vie...

It doesn't take my house burning down for me to sour on a neighbourhood. Unfortunately, LiveVideo is becoming more and more "YouTubish" and the "straw" was my video being deleted without reason and, more to the point, without explanation or recourse. I still don't have an answer despite having messaged them a number of times. I did get an email that was the text equivalent of "I dunno... it's up now..." (yeah... because I uploaded the damn thing three times after the initial deletion, the first two times getting 18+ designations.... on a video of thunder and lightning.....).

If LiveVideo is so damned concerned about porn (none of which, I reiterate, was present in my video), they MIGHT start by getting rid of the LiveTV shows which are fairly obviously undisguised porn rooms. Personally, I don't like going to the front page and seeing nothing but cleavage or almost-crotch-shots (male or female).... If that's what they want, fine.... I didn't join for that and I don't intend to stick around for the inevitable deluge of juvenile behaviour from haters and trolls and bullies that abounded on YouTube and drove me away from there.

Will I stay with VH?....

Who knows. If it does the same thing as YouTube and LV, sure....

So far, however, I am liking it.

Today, an article appeared on NewTeeVee which seemed to completely miss the point of the search for "community" that was lost on YouTube and is fast becoming extinct on LV.

"With a leadership that seems to be comprised of all middle-aged men — though they’re up to nearly 700 members already — the project seems driven by fear of persecution, commercialization and the mass market."

Since many of the users aren't actually "middle aged" (or, indeed, male) I think Liz Gannes missed the obvious. The search for "community" and "communication" isn't just a "middle-aged thing". Though those of us who ARE middle-aged seem to know what we are missing, there are a good number of younger people who want to communicate, want to join in, want to hear and be heard, without worrying about harassment and not having to find our way through the porn and skateboarders in order to do that.

"Community" is something that seems a mystery to some people, especially the concept of the "virtual community" that started out on YT and partially migrated to LV. In fact, like any community, virtual or otherwise, VH is diverse and sometimes rather "exclusive". After all, those who choose to live or not to live in a particular community do so because choose to. Either they feel like they belong or don't. A community is bound by mutual interests.

In any community, there are cliques and neighbourhoods, friends and associates, neighbours who hold their doors open to everyone and others who choose to socialize with a few select friends. Where communities fail to thrive, it is because the community is undermined either by the municipal bureaucracy or by the arrival of interlopers who have no interest in participating in the community and take their neighbours for granted.

YouTube's community failed when the owners failed to listen to the needs of the charter members of the "community" there and by the arrival of those who didn't actually make their homes on YouTube but made it their business to harass those who did. When YouTube further failed to act in defense of those who actually USED the services, they failed the community completely. LiveVideo has followed the YouTube model and is pandering to the lowest-common denominator and likewise failing the users.

Vloggerheads and Moar, appear, at least for the present, to offer the best hope for "community". If the founders of VH actually mean to stick to their principles and maintain VH a a "community", whether it remains private or not, perhaps in another year and a half, I won't be looking for someplace else to hang my hat.

"The point of VloggerHeads, which requires that users be at least 18 but doesn’t seem to be about naughty content, is plain old videoblogging — talking through a camera to other people about your life and issues you care about. That’s something the members feel has been crowded out as YouTube has grown. As VloggerHeads founder/early member Tom Guarriello (aka YouTube user tig847, with 270 videos on the site to his credit over the last two years) put it in a video from last week, “There’s millions of people in the audience on YouTube; there’s 500 people over on VloggerHeads just making boring videos to one another, talking about nonsense — nothing anybody cares about except us.”

It is intersting to note that the very first comment is from someone called EDiot who makes the unfounded statement (either taking the word of or using a spurious posting on "Encyclopedia Dramatica") that Vloggerheads "want your personal info (like CC#’s) in order to “verify” people". In fact, no such requirement exists. Like YouTube did, at least initially, there was mention that "eventually" there "MIGHT" be the requirement to provide some form of proof of identity "like a credit card" which would preclude those people who only want in to harass others. If such an eventuality DID occur, there would be  a third-party verification process, presumeably through one of the secure verification companies.

Again, this is only an "IF" and certainly not a current requirement. As I noted above, YouTube also mentioned this possibility, someting they have never done. Though I, for one, would be more than willing to offer some form of proof of identity if it meant a harassment-free community.