Learning2gether Episode 363

Download mp3:
https://learning2getherdotnet.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/2017feb12_evoclosingwebcast-64k.mp3?

EVO Head Coordinator Mbarek Akaddar issued an invitation to the closing webcast to be held in the Webheads virtual office Sunday Feb 12 at 14:00 UTC. Many of the coordination team were there along with many EVO 2017 session moderators, and EVO participants were encouraged to come and share their evaluation of the session they participated in, the challenges they met and their recommendations for next year.

My wife was kind enough to stream the session for us
on her channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjIgEmtKr4hD7ecPaIMCJYA 

Here are details of the Sun Feb 12 1400 UTC Closing Webcast of EVO 2017  hosted by Mbarek Akaddar

• The event took place in Bb Collaborate, in the Webheads Virtual Office
  http://learningtimesevents.org/webheads/
• Here is the BbC recording
  https://sas.elluminate.com/site/external/jwsdetect/nativeplayback.jnlp?sid=75&psid=2017-02-12.0414.M.7AE801FFB697DA460D4BF25AA8C21B.vcr
• Mbarek posted this shared Google doc to set the program for the event
  https://docs.google.com/document/d/14Sw0jAm4ekYZvc8fTlnLDUQaH_Q_4hsSK7JE8RnoO3k/edit?usp=sharing

Strike incurred on attempting to stream this event via YouTube

We were planning to live-stream this event on YouTube

However …

When setting up the event I was informed that the video which would have been created had it not been flagged, incurred a strike for deceptive posting or trying to drive traffic away from YouTube and onto my site.

Here is the text of what I posted as a description of the event I set up when I suddenly incurred the strike

Learning2gether Episode 363 Sun Feb 12 1400 UTC Closing Webcast of EVO 2017 takes place in Bb Collaborate, in the Webheads Virtual Office,
http://learningtimesevents.org/webheads/. Find more information here
http://tinyurl.com/learning2gether

I appealed as I have never engaged in deception nor do I monetize the sites I was linking to, which exist as free and open resources for the benift of educators

The appeal was rejected as the above appears to be a “violation of community guidelines,” and my three month ban on further streaming from my account will last from Feb 6 through May 6.

The video in question was flagged as shown above the instant after I hit the submit button to create the event (that is, the ‘review’ mentioned below lasted a nanosecond). Therefore, the “strike” was probably due to something an algorithm perceived as spam, as detailed in this followup email from YouTube

Hi Vance Stevens,

As you may know, our Community Guidelines describe which content we allow – and don’t allow – on YouTube. Your video “Closing Webcast of EVO 2017 – Learning2gether Episode 363” was flagged for review. Upon review, we’ve determined that it violates our guidelines. We’ve removed it from YouTube and assigned a Community Guidelines strike, or temporary penalty, to your account.

Video content restrictions

It’s not okay to post large amounts of untargeted, unwanted, or repetitive content to YouTube. If the main purpose of your content is to drive people off of YouTube and onto another site, it will likely violate our spam policies. In addition, misleading descriptions, tags, titles, or thumbnails designed to increase views are not allowed. Tags should only be placed in the appropriate tag section and not in the description. Learn more.

The impact of strikes

This is the first strike applied to your account. We understand that users seldom intend to violate our policies. That’s why strikes don’t last forever – this strike will expire in three months. However, it’s important to remember that additional strikes could prevent you from posting content to YouTube or even lead to your account being terminated.

How you can respond

If you believe this was a mistake, we’d like to hear from you. Please follow both of these steps as simply deleting the video won’t resolve the strike on your account.

• The next time you sign in you will be asked to acknowledge this strike on your account.
• If you would like to appeal this strike, please submit this form. Our team will thoroughly review your appeal and will contact you again very soon.

Sincerely,
– The YouTube Team

URLs relevant to the violation

• https://www.youtube.com/yt/policyandsafety/reporting.html
• https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2801973?visit_id=1-636222014813525041-3399803957&p=spam_policy&hl=en&rd=1
• https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/185111?hl=en
• https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/185111

I wish this had not happened abruptly, without any warning or caution, but as near as I can make out it might be because I often mention where my videos are posted in blogs or place tags in the text (unaware of any problem) and YouTube interprets this as driving traffic to my sites (such as this one), which though they are in no way commercial, no ads even, YouTube sees streaming in the context of monetization and reacted in this way.

For the record, Learning2gether and Webheads in Action from which it derives, have always operated without any funding (apart from occasional largess, such as the grant of the use of the LearningTimes Bb Collaborate room that made this event possible). These projects are the initiative of me, Vance Stevens, and I do not monetize them; on the contrary I pay hundreds of dollars a year from my own pocket for hosting fees, sustaining domain names, and other expenses associated with being Internet connected. My work and the work of all others involved in these projects is donated on a strictly volunteer basis.

One complicating factor here is that when setting up events, if you wish to embed the video so that people can click on it before the event and see a timer counting down to the stream, and the stream itself during the event, and the recording afterwards (the way that was normal with Hangouts on Air), then YouTube requires you to  monetize  your channel. This does not mean I receive money from YouTube or from ads placed in my channel (I haven’t received any money nor noticed any ads) – it  means only that I set this up in order to be able to embed the video watch page in my announcement of the upcoming event (otherwise the Embed option under Share was not available).

This could have something to do with YouTube’s disproportional reaction to whatever terms of service I inadvertently violated. In future, when I recover my right to stream this May, I will

• no longer set up events, but stream only on-the-fly through my channel,
• not mention other websites such as this one in the video description, where viewers might  go for further context for the video they are viewing
• take greater care in labeling my videos so as to avoid the impression I am posting “large amounts of untargeted, unwanted, or repetitive content to YouTube”

I hope this will resolve the problem

 

Earlier this week

Learning2gether Episode 362 Sat Feb 11 EVO Minecraft MOOC meets Jo Kay at Massively Minecraft

https://learning2gether.net/2017/02/11/evo-minecraft-mooc-meets-jo-kay-at-massively-minecraft/