personman

Hello! Thanks for doing this AMA. I must say, I wish it had happened before you actually rolled out the recent platform changes. That would have helped us trust you; as it is, everyone is saying this is "just damage control".

I choose to believe that you are going through a stressful reorganization, and it's understandable that things weren't thought through perfectly. The hilariousness of official Twitch vods and many game devs' own streams getting muted is part of why I think so, and the poor timing of your community communications can be seen as part of the same thing. Hopefully, it's not too late for us to have a meaningful dialogue, and for things to be a little less hilariously terrible than they have been for the last ~18 hours.

So, here's my question: which of the following are on the table?

Audio:

• Turning off audio muting altogether. Sounds like you're under a lot of pressure on this, but hey, maybe it's possible.
• Removing video game OSTs from the database. You are a video game streaming service; it is fair use for people to stream and save recordings of gameplay; it is completely absurd that your system is flagging the very content your platform is intended to host
• Muting things much more selectively. Half hour chunks are the most heavy-handed, experience-ruining way to do this; only a tiny fraction of copyrighted songs last anywhere near that long; you are removing access to huge amounts of your content creators' hard work. Why not just mute the actual part that matches?
• Increasing the stringency of the content-owner submission process, to avoid abuse cases like this one that we've seen across youtube for a while now.
• Treating users as innocent until proven guilty when making counterclaims. Given the erratic nature of the detection algorithm, the inevitable slowness of any manual investigation process, and the fact that videos are most relevant to communities shortly after they are released, it would be a HUGE improvement to user experience and community health if contested mutes were reversed until investigated.

Saving VoDs:

• Only deleting old saved VoDs that haven't been watched. You mentioned in your blog post that "80% of [y]our storage capacity is filled with past broadcasts that are never watched." So, go ahead and delete those! But don't delete the archives of famous streamers who are no longer active! That is valuable history! Preserve it!
• Allowing us to save VoDs forever again, at reduced capacity. Maybe only once they cross a viewership threshold?
• Allowing highlights to be longer than 2 hours. Many speedruns, e.g. Wind Waker, take longer than this. Making everyone painstakingly break their runs into 2-hour chunks is sad :(

I fully understand that not everything I'm asking for here is possible; my intention is to get a sense of what is possible. Our trust in you is shaken, but you have a golden opportunity to regain it. Show us what you're willing to do!

Hey, if you are the OP, it would be nice if you posted from that account. It makes your name blue, which is very helpful for seeing when you have posted a response as opposed to a random redditor.

Yes. And extremely common. And this doesn't IN ANY WAY lend support to horrible misogynistic beliefs about all women "secretly wanting it".

Holy shit, squirrel? I am like 75% sure I know you, though 2008 is much later than I was there. Were you around in like, 2003? I think I was still teen staff that year.

How can it possibly have been that long since I've been to camp ;__;

There is an edit button :)