I saw a few videos shared on PeerTube recently, and created an account on an instance. However, unlike Mastodon and Lemmy I’m struggling to discover channels to subscribe to. When I use the search functions on my instance, most results are either interesting channels which haven’t been updated in years, or random foreign language TV shows and episodes.
Just for example, if I’m trying to find videos on “Gaming” on one of the largest instances, the most recent video is over 1 year ago: https://tilvids.com/search?categoryOneOf=7
Is discoverability on PeerTube bad, or are there barely any active channels?
Edit: BTW one very active creator on PeerTube is https://tilvids.com/c/thelinuxexperiment_channel/videos and his videos are excellent. But can there really only be a handful of active creators to follow on the whole platform?
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In that case issue is some instances do not allow global search and that’s why search will limit to only channels you follow and your instance.
The discoverability is incredibly bad. Peertube has a ton of videos and more servers than lemmy by a long shot iirc. The problem is that the „frontend“ has seen no love like ever. There recently came an app which is nice but otherwise, its very underloved.
Feel free to voice your concerns in !peertube@lemmy.ml for example. The devs should be available through the fedi somewhere.
You should go here https://ideas.joinpeertube.org/ or here https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube to raise concerns.
that’s the chicken and egg problem of any social network: people don’t want to go to a social network with only a few number of content creators and content creators don’t want to spend their time managing another platform for only a few number of viewer… social networks needs people to be alive and so if you are interested in Peertube, it will be hard at first but use it so, just like voting system where every vote count, the platform will have one more user and if other people do the same, the platform will grow and if it grow enough it will start to attract bigger content creator, etc…
It’s in people hand to break the cycle and makes that Youtube alternative a viable alternative.
I’m a peertube instance admin for years now and closed my google/youtube account 10 years ago, so I’m doing my part to break it.
I would not recommend using tilvids.com. They do not federate with anyone and do not have global search enabled, which means search only shows videos from tilvids.com. It is however, possible to follow channels from tilvids.com from other platforms (instances).
Simply copy the link from tilvids.com and paste it into the search bar of an instance that has global search enabled.
Platforms can also follow channels directly from tilvids and the videos will show up on said platform.
Discoverability can be a bit finicky on PeerTube. Especially if you don’t know how to fine tune the filters.
If you take a look at this list: https://peertube.wtf/home and this one https://lemmy.wtf/post/15810205, you’ll see that there’s plenty of content creators to follow. I discover new ones almost every day.
There really isn’t any other big content creators on PeerTube, other than The Linux Experiment, but if you wanna see your favorite creator on PeerTube, ask them.
If you are looking for a platform (instance) to register on, I recommend looking at this list: https://lemmy.wtf/post/15816115
I just rejoined PeerTube after I had a quick look years ago, and it’s gotten way better since then, actually. I found out Space Quest Historian is on it, too!
But yeah, discoverability isn’t good. Lack of an algorithm also makes bingewatching impossible - for better and worse, I guess.
As you linked them, I’d also recommend peertube.wtf - they even reacted very quickly when I reported a transphobic german conspiracy channel/server.
Check out the two pinned posts here: !peertube@lemmy.wtf
It’s both horrible discovery and a limited number of creators.
But, for discoverability, https://sepiasearch.org/ might help you find things to watch, since it’s the only good multi-server search I’ve seen. (And run by the peertube devs.)
Sepia Search is something that’s also build into PeerTube, if the admin have enabled Global Search. Sepia Search uses this list of instances: https://instances.joinpeertube.org/instances
The same can be enabled in PeerTube. You can see here, that I have it enabled on my instance:
i found sepia search to be very good! i noticed the ios peertube app seems to have integrated it so a lot more videos are discoverable. @ellyxir@humanwords.cc
I’m so glad you pointed this out. I did not have this enabled on mine and I forgot about this option completely. I just enabled it.
I say this everytime someone talks about peertube. You should not need to leave the website to use the website. If I search “crazy guy uses rake to play football”, and it’s not in the results page, I’m not going to go to ANOTHER website, to search THIS website, for a guy who doesn’t understand how to play sports.
Yeah, I agree.
When it comes to building a fediverse service there’s a really delicate balance to find with making it unambiguous you’re engaging with multiple services, vs creating a singular and cohesive enough user experience, and it seems like the peertube devs just learn reaaally far towards the former at the expense of the latter.
Its a bit frustrating.
Edit: I learned from another user on this thread that sepia search can be enabled by an instance as their search functionality. That definitely helps
You say that yet Google search / Internet search is very much a big thing. For the record, I agree with you.
I’m not entirely sure what you’re saying. Google owns youtube. If you’re saying people search google, and then click the youtube link results, I mean, yeah, people do that. But it’s not a necessity. I can go to youtube, and search straight from youtube. I CAN search from google, but it’s not a requirement like it is with peertube.
PeerTube doesn’t have search at all? Yea that is kind of nuts. I’ve had bad search experience across Lemmy and Mastodon as well. I wonder how much is due to decentralized nature of the servers, the federation aspect, or just poor search functionality.
Peertube has a search, but by default it only searches it’s own instance. Instance owners can choose to federate with other instances, but thats a choice they need to enable.
You can use outside searches to search all of peertube, but it’s not a given that you can on peertube directly.
Instance owners can enable Sepia Search (Global Search Index) on their instances.
I didn’t know that, that definitely helps
I’m not opposed to a microservice that indexes the fediverse for creating a robust search index. Without it, you’d have to nearly search each server on each service.
It’s both horrible discovery and a limited number of creators.
100%. I created my own instance and set it to auto-follow other instances. There’s like 975 or something and still not really much interesting. Can confirm TILVids also denied my federation request.
I’m doing my part by uploading my own videos 🙂
If I set it the discovery to “trending” the top video is 2 years old 🤷
Sort by “hot”. And also, check this list out for content: https://lemmy.wtf/post/15810205
Also also, you can still follow channels on tilvids.com, from your own instance, by following the channel’s handle.
I couldn’t even get an account on the instance I most wanted because they seem to only give accounts to creators. So now I cannot follow anyone on that instance, or like their videos, or comment. So I have to figure out what other instance I can get an account on and follow from there, hoping they federated with each other.
Important: you do not need to have an account on a peertube instance. You can follow from nearly (iirc) any fedi instance. I have successfully done so from mastodon and I have heard lemmy should work, not sure though. You just copy the address of the channel you want to follow from the browser and paste it in your search bar on mastodon.
The that’s a shit solution.
Which instance was that? Have a look at this list: https://lemmy.wtf/post/15816115
Even if the instance does not federate with the instance you wanted, you can still type in the link of the channel in the other instance’s search bar.
That’s a shit solution
Then find another instance…
Just horrible discovery leading creators to abandon the platform.
Yeah, that must be it. It’s a real shame because the core technology seems to be solid. Streaming 1080p videos from other instances just works. But finding channels to follow seems impossible.
Yeah that’s been my experience with most of the fediverse so far. It’s not going anywhere unless someone comes up with a solution to the discoverabilty problems.
I had the exact same experience including the videos you linked to. There was nothing to be found.
Which is silly because most instances will auto mirror your YouTube channel. Literally takes no effort to post to both.
I created !peertube@lemmy.world in case anyone finds channels, videos, ect that they like.
We can help with the discovery!
Check out the pinned posts here: !peertube@lemmy.wtf
I have a Peertube server, and I’ve requested to follow tilvids, and they denied my request, and they also do not follow my Peertube server. I think one issue with tilvids may be that they essentially choose not to federate, and therefore you won’t find much because of this.
I just searched for “Gaming” on my Peertube server and I seem to get a non-ending list of servers. Unfortunately, one column wide, but a lot. When I search for King’s Quest, I am also getting a seemingly unending stream of videos.
I follow every Peertube server I can that is clearly not fascist, primarily NSFW, NSFL, etc.
Maybe you just need to find a server that is more federated with other Peertube servers.
Fell free to send federation request :) https://peer.madiator.cloud/
This is the issue with federated youtube. It should ALL be federated, and all searchable, mandatory.
Now if I the user decide I don’t want to see an instance/video/creator, I should have two options.
Block - Used for when content offends you. It has zero place being in your feed.
Not Interested - Used when content isn’t offensive per se, but you really don’t care about it either. It’s not completely blocked from your feed, but it’s certainly not getting first dibs to show up from now on.
This leaves one thing that some may feel is an issue. Lets say there were a small dicked loser who did nazi salutes in public, and wanted to upload hateful content. Lets give him a random name for the sake of simplicity. Let’s call him…Elon. Hypothetical name.
So lets say small dicked Elon, starts uploading hateful content. On youtube you would report him. On peertube, since he owns the hosted server, you’d be reporting him to himself. Which is as you can imagine, useless.
So from here, you block them, and then you never have to see their hateful content ever again.
Because their rise, only comes from people giving these people attention.
Yes!
Tilvids.com don’t want to allow following or follow anyone themselves. That’s a policy they have had for a long time. However… Since Tilvids is on this list: https://instances.joinpeertube.org/instances?search=tilvids, they are part of the Global Search Index. So you can get videos from tilvids in your search results, if you instance has enabled Global Search.
Also, you, as an instance owner, can follow channels on tilvids, by using their channel handles.
what’s the best peertube instance to upload gaming videos to? I might upload some and see how it goes
edit: I think I’m gonna go with spectra, but omg this is annoying:
Channel identifier cannot be the same as your account name. You can click on the first step to update your account name.
I get it, they’re separate actors, but still annoying. Can people find my channel by either name? Edit2: yes they can, all the user’s channels are listed on the user profile, which maybe makes it worth the signup annoyance
Isn’t it the exact same thing on YouTube?
You have a user account, which can have x numbers of channels.
Take a look here for an instance: https://lemmy.wtf/post/15816115 And take a look here, under gaming, which instances they use: https://lemmy.wtf/post/15810205
As someone who watches gaming footage on PeerTube, I’ve mostly interacted with single creator instances – i.e. either the creator themselves is self-hosting it or it’s run by a fan as a non-YT backup of their Twitch/Owncast/whatever VODs. Those instances generally do not allow anyone else to upload.
Discoverability sucks but the way I’ve found them is by using SepiaSearch and looking for specific words from game titles. I imagine the way most other people find them is that they already know the content creator from Twitch and want to find an old VOD that isn’t archived on YT (e.g. because of YT’s bullshit copyright system) – but that’s just a guess.
Haha, good luck.
I think peer tube federation is opt in not opt out like most other services.
The PeerTube admin chooses which other platforms they follow. They can also control who can follow them.
i can’t easily upload from my ipad which is my main video creation device.
i just post to my personal goto social instance without issue.
Yeah the search is the worst part. As others have said the technology is there, we just need a better search.
The other issue is Lemmy (and perhaps other platforms) has issues with Peertube channels. I can’t direct link Peertube for activityhub posts. Lemmy is a no go. !teddy_the_dog@piped.chrisco.me Piefed for example works: https://piefed.social/c/teddy_the_dog@piped.chrisco.me
I host one and don’t plan on taking it down anytime soon! If anyone likes dog videos: @teddy_the_dog@piped.chrisco.me
He’s a good boy.
Nice channel, I’ve just added it to https://piefed.social/topic/wholesome to help people find it.
Excellent. I hope we will all enjoy it. Teddy is a good boy :)
Thanks!!
Try the app, it’s a little better
Not if you want to subscribe to a channel, or interact with videos in any way.
Yeah it is a major work in progress but discoverability is better and you can use Sepia search from within it.
