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We have, now, assertained that inlined videos (for want of a better description) are currently turned off (disabled) for SE 3D Printing, but can be turned on at any time, and there is no need to wait for the site to exit Beta, see Is the "inlining videos" capability turned off on this site?

The question now is, should we enable it?

I have seen a few (2?) cases where the OP has linked to a video in order to succinctly describe their issue. As Ecnerwal points out in their answer to Help understanding bridge settings, watching videos, and in particular having to click on a link to watch them, can be somewhat onerous. Having the video inlined, might make it less so.

BTW, I don't know what [backend or UX] disadvantages there would be to switching it on, although there are these cautionary tales.

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From a traffic standpoint, people are more likely to stay on our site if they do not have to jump over to YouTube or any other video page to get the answer they're looking for from a video. As mentioned in the question, there are already a few use-cases for such a feature and I don't think it would hurt the visual appeal to the questions/answers.

However, it would be good to get some insight on disadvantages to the site in implementing this capability.

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  • $\begingroup$ I think that if you want to keep people on the site, you should inline the video's. Else they get lost in the recommended video links and never return. So why has this not been enabled yet? @Greenonline ? $\endgroup$
    – 0scar Mod
    Commented Aug 3, 2018 at 9:48
  • $\begingroup$ Yeah, I'm not sure @0scar. I believe that one posts a request to the sites Meta site (such as this youtube and the MathJax question) and hopefully someone "higher up" sees it and does something about it. I may need to check on that fact though, either in the Teacher's Lounge or SE.Meta (although we've already asked on SE.Meta for both issues and not much came of it). Is it because we are still beta? I doubt it. I might ask on Robotics how they got MathJax enabled. $\endgroup$
    – Greenonline Mod
    Commented Aug 15, 2018 at 22:29
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It actually seems like a user from 3D Printing SE - @markshancock - has asked this exact question over at the general Meta. (Nice work, @markshancock!)

As pointed out by Jason Cs answer, it basically seems like we have to make a case why we need it to the SE moderation team, so that they can decide whether to activate it or not.

In general, I think inlining videos makes sense for our site, since both the questions and answers often can end up with a video link with some descriptive text. Examples include questions of printers with strange behavior, and answers of how to do XYZ in Fusion 360 answered as a Youtube link. In both of these cases, what would otherwise be a mere "link only answer" would get much more substance.

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    $\begingroup$ Not exactly this question but related... Mark asked the Meta question, because we had discovered a few limitations on this beta site (migration paths, and inlining video among them). This question is to see if we should turn it on or not. $\endgroup$
    – Greenonline Mod
    Commented Jun 7, 2017 at 8:47
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    $\begingroup$ Like @Greenonline mentioned, my question was not specifically directed toward inline video; but, my question did refer to it so they did talk about inline video in their answer. Like Tormod mentions, we may need to provide a justification to turn it on. The standard they noted was for it to be "only turned on if the community thinks it's necessary to improve the quality of a good portion of their question base". I agree our site could benefit from inline video for some questions, but their standard is a pretty high bar. Can we meet that? $\endgroup$
    – markshancock
    Commented Jun 10, 2017 at 20:27

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