talkmagic.co.uk

I know that we have discussed YouTube here before, and the problem with exposure, but I wanted to bring up "Accidental Exposure". There are two ways that I have seen this happen (there may be more).

First: An effect performed poorly, accidently exposing a sleight or the method of the effect.
Second: People posting individual sleights.

The problem is that both of the above examples are often done when posting items asking for feedback by magicians by those learning the effect or sleight.

Now, although we cannot stop people posting effects as performance that are done poorly, but when posting for feedback there may be something that we can do.

I cannot claim that this idea is original to me, I saw a post of a sleight or effect here that the person posting the video stated that it was labeled, tagged and/or named in such a way that no one would find it.

That is what I believe the secret is here, labeling and/or tagging the video of effects and/or sleights that are being posted for feedback that expose the sleight or secret with tags and titles and names that would not be found by a normal search. Perhaps random characters and numbers (a combination would be less likely to be found than just letters or numbers). Also, there should be no pattern or formula to the naming, so that they are difficult to find. Now, I know that this is "Security through obscurity", which is not secure, but until there is a way to password protect the videos there is little choice other than just not posting, and then there is no way for us to help those trying to learn.

I have seen people post effects with he effect name and sleights with the name of the sleight. It is understandable because it is the first thought to name it correctly, but this makes them easier to find by people who only know the name and therefore leads to exposure to non-magicians.

Thoughts anyone?

For security, I agree that naming something obscurely isn't foolproof. I think that a site like TM (or TM itself...) should host its own video upload site for contructive criticism or compliments. If a video falls behind the quality standards, have the mods give advise to the person then delete the video. When the person improves, allow him/her to upload the revised video and allow it to be publically seen. As for naming the trick, I don't think it matters what name you call it- even if the word "Tenkai" is in a title, a true layperson won't understand.

Perposeful exposure is- I'm afraid- unavoidable. There are too many video hosting sites to stop all exposure. Ultimately, only people who are truly devoted to magic will be successful. The exposure people are small fry.

I agree with taR, exposure is impossible to stop.
But I really like the idea of TM's own video upload service, I'm sure it must have been put to the mods before but maybe a request should be entered.

Even people performing tricks - badly - on youtube consitiutes as exposure.
I have been toying with the idea of purchasing Andrew Mayne's Gutbuster for some time, but after seeing some kids over enthusiatically perform it on youtube, the method was quite clear.
I tried out what I thought it looked like and it convinced spectators. Maybe the way I worked it out is different to Mayne's, but I achieve the same effect.
Yes, youtube is a bad thing for magic, either "magicians" happily explaining things away or poorly performed effects giving away all.
You'd think people would check the camera angles on these things to ensure it was perfect before putting it on line.
Kids and computers... in the main an awful mix.

There is a petition to stop magic exposure on YouTube which, while I hope it succeeds, will probably fail. We cannot completely stop exposure but the main goal of the original question was to try to reduce accidental exposure by our members. I do not believe that anyone on TM intends to expose the secrets, but are doing so unintentionally. I believe that it may have been asked of the mods to host videos here and, since videos are not hosted on this site, I will have to assume that it was not possible. If not I will ask:

Mods: Is it possible to host videos on TM to help prevent accidental exposure? Perhaps restricting access to members who have reached the "Full Member" or "Preferred Member" level of participation on TM.

Kolisar wrote:Is it possible to host videos on TM to help prevent accidental exposure? Perhaps restricting access to members who have reached the "Full Member" or "Preferred Member" level of participation on TM.

I don't think it's possible to host directly on the TM servers but we do have the File Sharing Section which was originally intended to cater for links to 'proper' vids etc of magic. If there are any inappropriate ones posted there we can certainly delete the links and posts accordingly.

Mandrake wrote: I don't think it's possible to host directly on the TM servers but we do have the File Sharing Section which was originally intended to cater for links to 'proper' vids etc of magic. If there are any inappropriate ones posted there we can certainly delete the links and posts accordingly.

Mandrake, I may have not clearly stated what I meant. Part of the problem is that the videos are usually hosted on YouTube, PutFile, or some other publicly viewable and searchable site. If the files could be hosted here, access could be restricted and prevent the general public from accessing them. At that point, if the videos accidently expose secrets it would not matter as much as it would be to another magician who, we would assume, has a vested interest in not spreading secrets to the general public. But I do understand the possible limitations, both storage and bandwidth, that may prevent TM from hosting the files.

Don't worry, I fully understand your point but the available server space is still the big limitation. Another aspect is that, apart from on rare occasions, we don’t set out to be a teaching site where such vids would normally be expected to be found. Youtube, Putfile etc would be great resources if the vids there were password protected but I suppose it wouldn't be long before one eeejit gave all his mates the password!