If the announcement is public, then I do not see why one should not link to it unless the vidder asks otherwise (whether to link to their site, or not to link, or whatever), in which case, do what the vidder says.

This is a very succinct (certainly much more succinct than I could ever be) summary of precisely what I've learned from this poll.

It's an amazing revelation to me. Everything I was told was totally wrong is turning out to be, in fact, not wrong at all.

I don't mind getting queries, because then I know that someone is looking at the vid.

A lot of people have said that they track back URL referrals for the sort of secondhand feedback - like, to see if people are discussing the vid over at the referring URL. From this, I conclude that vidders mostly don't know if their vids are watched or discussed. And so, on the one hand, permissions would fix this - but, on the other, permissions will also reduce the total quantity of watching and discussion. Seems like most vidders would rather have the discussion without the permission request than not have the discussion at all.