Youtube Poop News

As a special expansion of the interview section of the YCP News page, a private experimental Round Table Discussion panel was conducted from May 28 to May 30 on the YCP forum. Invited to the Discussion were SuperYoshi, the first person to upload a video to Youtube recognized as a Poop; Ophios, forum moderator and prolific pooper; Stegblob, renowned Scottish pooper; and SeductiveBaz, who unfortunately could not join the discussion. The discussion was made up of seven key questions with room for follow-up questions. There were two topics for this panel: Youtube Suspensions and Conrad Slater - An Aftermath.Hopefully, this will be the first of many Round Tables to come.

Host: First of all, welcome to the discussion. This is an extension of the interview section of the news page. Unlike an interview however, this format of discussion give you the chance to answer questions in a group context. This gives you the opportunity to respond to each other as well as to my questions.

I encourage you to interact with each other and respond to what other people have said. I do ask that you try to avoid using the quote function though, to make formating this for publication easier.

There will be seven questions, with room for some interjected follow-up questions. They will be presented one at a time, awaiting your responses.

Baz unfortunately couldn’t be with us. I’m under the impression that he’s busy with other things.

So let’s start with the first question on the topic of Youtube Suspensions:

A general feeler of how people feel about Youtube suspensions. Are you generally concerned about being suspended on Youtube? How do you think you’d respond to being suspended?

Ophios:

To get straight to the answer, yes I am concerned about being suspended.

I have more then 380 videos, more then 180 subscriptions.
to have to rebuild the last two years would be horrifying, not to mention tedious and long work.

But if I were suspended, I would probably just move my videos over to my alt (Which no one, as of writing, has figured out).

SuperYoshi:

Yeah, I haven’t seen Baz on the forum in a while.

In any case, I’m actually surprised I haven’t been suspended yet. After Jing was banned some months ago I took some precautions and saved every video I’ve submitted to Youtube in a folder, as well as every video’s original video page and comment page, as well as my PMs, userpage, userpage comments, and every favorite page. I still need to update that with my recent videos, though. Either way I’d say I’m prepared.

If I were suspended today, I would most certainly reupload everything by the week on another account. The comments would be gone, but I’d still have them on my own computer.

The thing about most people is that they’ve accumulated a ton of videos over the years, especially Ophios. I only just break 50, so it wouldn’t be that troublesome to reupload everything.

Stegblob:

I’m not really concerned about being suspended. Of course, if I were to be suspended, I would be a little bit upset or annoyed, but I could easily just reupload them all to my alt account. And fortunately, most people who know about my regular account, also know about my KingStegBlob account. So letting people know where I’ve gone after being suspended wouldnt be a problem.

The only thing that concerns me is if my alt account were to be suspended rather than my regular one, or if they were both to be suspended at the same time. But I dont think thats likely to happen. The only thing worth watching out for on that account is my Halo trap, but the chances of me being suspended for that are low.

I’d need to watch out though. There are a few seconds of Family Guy in some of my videos, along with other material people have been suspended for using. But as I said, I’d just reupload the videos to my alt account. I’d probably edit them to remove stuff that could be risky before I do so though. I mean, I’ve already had a video removed for “sexual content”, and I’ve already reuploaded it. And 50 videos isnt much, so I wouldnt be bothered too much.

Host: Documentary movies and news programs can show clips of shows because of “Fair Use.” If what they are describing can only be shown by a media clip, they are allowed to show it. How do you think Poop figures into “Fair Use?”

Ophios:

Well, by defining “Fair” use as “what they are describing can only be shown by a media clip,” you pretty much pushed poops out of fair use.

Since poops are nothing more then the clips itself

Now of course I could go on about how poops don’t actually hurt anyone, but that’s irrelevant, isn’t it?

Stegblob:

Bleh, so long as I’m not just uploading copyrighted shit and claiming it as my own, then I see it as “Fair Use” of that media. Mind you, I dont exactly give credit to whoever made the actual clip/show/whatever. but I doubt that DiC actually give a shit. I say DiC, because AoStH is pretty much my main source, as you know.

It’s just shit being edited together and shit anyways. Whoever the media belongs to shouldnt exactly be able to say “OMG HE STEAL OUR SHOW AND UPLOAD IT BAN HIM EVEN THOUGH HE IS NOT UPLOAD IT WHOLE SEGMENT OMG”. In fact, from what we’ve read over the passed year, plenty of people actually dont mind their material being used in poops. Such as the guys who made the Volvic ads, for example.

Ophios:

And of course it (Fair use) all means shit with the digital information act (Or whatever the hell it’s called)

someone can just say, “LOL U HAVE MAH COPRITE, TAEK IT DOWN OR I SUE”
and you have to take it down, no matter what.

It’s bullshit.

SuperYoshi:

To be frank, it could go both ways. For one way, it essentially doesn’t fall into fair use because of exactly what Ophios said.

On the other hand, it really doesn’t matter because it’s clear that these aren’t made for profit or anything, nor any kind of personal gain or profit. I mean it’s not like we’re selling DVDs of this shit or charging some kind of fee to watch these. If that were the case, then yeah, there’d definitley be a problem at hand.

Host: If what Poopers do is not considered copyright infringement, how would you define it? How far is too far? 20% of a movie? 50% of a show? Or is it merely not a problem because we aren’t profiting from it?

SuperYoshi:

Oh, I’d definitley say that it’s copyright infringement. I mean, not in the 100% sense, but still, almost everything used in poops is copyrighted.

Yeah, I don’t really think it’s that big a deal considering 1: We’re not making a profit out of this and 2: it’s not as if we’re posting the full clips in our videos. It’s all very complicated and not worth thinking very deeply about, this is the internet.

Host: Well, I think part of the point of this is to take this a bit deeper than the average internet conversation. Take it as deep as you want to.

Stegblob:

So long as we’re not making a profit out of it, then I dont see it as copyright infringement. Sure, we’re using shit that other companies use and gain money from, but what harm is uploading videos to YouTube, edited or not, going to do? It’s not like Fox are going to go out of business because some of us uploaded clips using the Simpsons, Family Guy, or Futurama, is it?

SuperYoshi:

To be honest, the law isn’t exactly my favorite subject to talk about.

I mean, let’s face it: just about everyone here does something illegal, be it download software, pirate movies/TV shows, whatever.

And if I get banned for copyright infringement, so be it. I don’t meant to go back to the first question and everything, but according to the Youtube’s rules and regulations, this stuff really isn’t allowed to be here, and it’s their site, so whatever. Will I try again with another account? Of course I will, but you always need to take the precautions in doing so, like with titles and tags and stuff. If Youtube gets smart and gets really worried and knows what the hell is going on, they could easily get every video with Youtube Poop in its title and tags deleted. Granted, that would be absolutley hilarious to see but it’s something they CAN do and not by any means an impossibility.

Frankly, I’m glad “Youtube Poop” as a whole isn’t a big internet phenomenon like many want it to be, because if it were, then the above exaggeration could very well be a reality.

Host: In fact, you might even make the argument that companies gain from having more exposure for their media.

SuperYoshi:

his is very true. It’s kind of like “Oh man I haven’t seen ’such-and-such’ in forever I’m going to buy the box set”. Granted, that’s not exactly as it plays out all the time, but I’m sure there’s some people out there who have gone out and bought the respective sources they saw in a poop after seeing one.

Ophios:

Well, since what I wanted to say was already said, I’ll add this.

Copyright has to do with law.
Law being the realm in which people waste time and money (Of others), for such asinine reasons as “OMG HE HERT MAI FEELINS” and “THEY LAOST MAI PANTZ”

It’s nice to have laws, and rights, but we have to have dignity and respect, and a sense of self responsibility.

This, being something most companies don’t have.

Host: I think we’ve covered Youtube suspensions and copyright issues pretty well. Let’s move onto the “hotter” topic of Conrad Slater.

What is or was your opinion on the former owner of the site? Should he have left the community the way he did? Would you encourage people to reuse Conrad’s directory or find a use for it?

Ophios:

I liked conrad… a bit.
That was until his ego got in the way of everything.

I don’t know “how” he left the community, because frankly at the time, I couldn’t care less about him.. I mean, I am grateful for what he did, but he just became such a pain towards the end.

Stegblob:

Well, as I’ve said many times, I was pretty annoyed at the way Conrad was treated during his last few months here.

He made the site, directory, and forum for people to use, because he wanted to have a sort of community for poopers to discuss things. And for a while, we had that, until the whole “War on AIDS” thing. But when that blew over, things seemed to turn back to normal, except people claiming we were all elitists.

Then over the next few months, Conrad started to be treated like shit. Ok, he made some mistakes, but christ. Then everyone started to over react when he demodded Fox, and from that moment on, “CONRAD WAS A CUNT”. And then when things are “settled”, along comes ShadowWario to fuck everything up. He flames the shit out of Conrad for letting WalrusGuy join the Perfect Poop contest, Conrad bans him, then people say “LOLOLOL DATS UNFAIR CONRAD IS A FAGGOT LETS LEAVE”. And then when Planet Freedom came along, that was it. People prefered the way you guys ran the site so much that they flamed Conrad for anything. I even remember a shitload of people flaming him for banning the1936, without them even knowing what happened. And that was pretty much it. Conrad left after that, and I can see why. He spends a shitload of money making this place for us, kept trying to improve it (whether in a way we liked or not), and just wanted a community for us all. But despite that, he was told to fuck off a hell of a lot more than he was thanked, and with that I can see why he left the way he did. Also, he got a job, meaning he wouldnt have much time to do shit with the site anyway. The problem was that most of the forum members didnt exactly understand the situation with Conrad. If something happened, they blamed Conrad, when more than half of the time they (or Conrad) wasnt even online when it happened.

As for the directory, plenty of us still use it. I for one still use it from time to time. Whenever I’m bored, I just like to go there and watch some random videos. Conrad still seems to update it every so often, which is nice, I guess.

SuperYoshi:

Kinda agreeing with Steg here. Seemed like Conrad became a huge scapegoat for the forum when something went wrong:

HOWEVER

I’ll admit I was never fond of how he jumped to conclusions constantly, especially with the paranoia that every other forum was solely made to gather our IPs and track us down/hack us/whatever, but that’s partially my fault. If we had the old posts to look at, the whole story would be there, but anyway…he was a nice guy, but I’ll admit the AIDS thing got out of hand. Oh yeah, I remember when he made Pimpsahoy a mod as a joke and everyone flipped their shit and I think Baz got banned or something as part of the joke. It was pretty fucking funny, I have to admit. Man, all this is making me miss the old posts. But yeah, that whole disabling HTML thing to speed the forum up even though it was never that slow in the first place and when there was a problem disabling the features had no positive effect whatsoever did irritate me.

He has some pretty neat hats too. I miss him.

Ophios:

[Referring to the Pimpsahoy as mod prank,] well, a lot of people didn’t think it was a joke because let’s face it, Conrad was pretty much “Gay” for pimps.

SuperYoshi:

I had my suspicions as soon as he made that account saying “Oh, this is my friend, he’ll be the new mod instead of whoever and I’m demodding them immediatley”.

The drama did make me leave for like the two days it lasted, though.

Ophios:

I admit, I fell for the joke too.

For a bit…

Host: Let’s move to another related question.

Looking back on the transfer of power, how do you feel about Conrad’s actions? What should he have done differently, if anything? What do you think his place in the community is now?

Stegblob:

I wasnt even there for that whole Pimpsahoy being a mod thing. All I know is that severeal members suspected me of actually being a mod, and that i was the one who made Tang a mod. God that made me laugh.

Anyone with half a brain could clearly understand why Conrad did what he did in the way that he did, as I pretty much explained in my last post. The problem was that he was rather paranoid about the status of the website, taking all sorts of precautions here and there, which eventually left to him getting fed up with it altogether. I could type a lod of things here, but I’d only end up repeating mine and SY’s posts regarding Conrad himself.

Although he’s not really part of the community anymore, I still see him as the heart of the community, if you know what I mean. It’s a shame that he doesnt come here though. Sure the both of us had our differences at times (I was given abuser status at least 5 times), but he was a nice guy, and he’s probably the only person I could have a decent conversation about Doctor Who with. =<

Ophios:

Well, two things conrad should have done

1. He should have not been so “nice” to pimps (But I can understand why he did so, so it’s not so much his fault as pimps’ fault)

2. He should have just learned to trust people a little bit more.

But otherwise, I think he did a good job with the site, and tried to expand on it and make it a big community (Wiki and all).

SuperYoshi:

I’m not even sure if he’s in the community anymore, what with that video he made. I think he’s kinda just on his own now with Youtubepoop.com. I’m sure he checks the forum every now and then but I doubt he’s ever going to join.

Haha, now I remember. I didn’t join Planet Freedom because of what happened on the forum, I joined because I could no longer stand the drama of everyone and just wanted to go back to having actual discussions and whatnot. Honestly, I’m sure he would have eventually put everything back to normal again, since he’s done that before. Guess it’s too late now, though.

Host: For the sake of time, I’ll ask the final two questions together.

How do you think the community feels about him in general? Do you agree with this general attitude?

Would you want Conrad to return as a member of the community?

SuperYoshi:

Well, I certainly don’t think anyone would mind Conrad coming back, on the off-chance that he does. I mean, yeah, people were definitley angry at what he did, but that’s gone and past now. There was a lot of anti-Conrad stuff being posted back when the drama started, but I don’t think the community has much malice for him anymore. I think we’ve all stated here that we wouldn’t mind seeing Conrad back.

Ophios:

I really can’t answer the question, because, let’s face it, I am so OUT OF TOUCH with the community.

Stegblob:

Although there are still plenty of folks out there who dont like Conrad very much, I think I can safely say that the majority of us would want him back. I was sort of indifferent with his attitude towards the way poops should be made for a while, but then I stopped caring. I would personally love to see him back here, if only for a short while.

Host: Thank you guys again for participating in this.

Discussion hosted by RabbitSnore between May 28 and May 30. Thanks to Steg, Ophios, SY, Baz, and the news staff, especially Christoph.