Paging YouTube experts: Vlog help!

[Ainsley]

I'm trying to make a Vlog on YouTube as an educational resource for my students. In theory, using the Vlog should allow me to post my own custom description for each video so that I can explain who the dancer is and what dance style s/he's performing.

In practice, although I can write and save very long descriptions, only the first 40 characters of each description will actually display next to the video in my YouTube channel, and I can't find a way for a visitor to my channel to access the rest.

Is there a way to display the whole description? I'm at a loss as to why YouTube would allow me to save a long description (which is accessible to me when I edit the video) but not display it.

Sedonia actually asked the same question in this thread a couple of years ago and seems to have had no luck getting a response, but I thought I'd throw it out there again just in case!

[Asim]

Keep in mind that, by default, YouTube only displays the first line or so of a description. They are easy to miss, even if you tell people to look for 'em.

You'd be MUCH better off just providing a like to a blog entry, or the like, where you can describe at length. You can also provide the link as an Annotation to the video, which means almost no one can claim to miss it!

[Ainsley]

Thanks for the suggestions, Asim!

I agree that the ideal way to do it would be to create the list on a webpage where I could organize the videos and comment on them to my heart's content. I don't intend to keep updating the list blog-style, just to compile a short list of videos to help students differentiate between various Middle Eastern dance styles.

Problem being that I have neither a website nor a blog at the moment. So I'm giving YouTube a shot -- if it's not possible to comment as extensively as I'd like I'll either lower my expectations or shelve the idea for the moment.

Annotations are a good idea, but am I correct that they can only be made by the user who uploaded the video? I wasn't very clear in my OP, but I'm compiling a list of other people's videos on YouTube so that I can point out who's doing Turkish Oriental, who's doing Egyptian Oriental, and who's doing ATS, for instance, not uploading my own.