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I created an alternative to the YouTube algorithm to stop me wasting time

towardsdatascience.com

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Re: I created an alternative to the YouTube algorithm to stop me wasting time

#41

Post by serjester »

pantelisk wrote: post #25

The youtube algorithm is working extremely well, to the point where I find hard to believe it does not have any human in the loop or active moderation. I have discovered so many interesting types of music and documentaries and subculture/subgenres on it. It manages to hit my interests so well, that I rarely go to netflix nor spotify anymore for discovery. I 'll either directly go watch something that I 've chosen on…

Seconded. I find YouTube’s algorithm to be fantastic (maybe I’ve given it too much training data). It does a great job suggesting videos about my various hobbies, movie clips and obscure music recommendations. Surprised it works so poorly for others.

Re: I created an alternative to the YouTube algorithm to stop me wasting time

#43

Post by gylterud »

ChrisLovejoy wrote: post #37
gylterud wrote: post #28

I found YouTube suggestions to be generally useless, so I have just disabled the suggestion sidebar completely[0]. Leaves more screen space for the video. The reason I found them useless is that the suggestions were too specialised. I usually do not want to watch a dozen videos on the same topic. I usually want to watch one high quality video about it, then move on. Same with channels. I do not want to follow ten cha…

I like the blog! Yeah, that's pretty much my exact gripe - that the algorithm just keeps wanting to show you more of the same. It's like a friend who gets obsessed about one thing after you said you liked it once :') I'm not sure how best to solve this though

I like when YouTubers talk about other channels they like, and I often go check those out – especially if they are on some completely different topic. Because if someone is making content I like, they might also have good taste when it comes to what they watch. But I think in general the art of "taste-making" remains just that: an art.

Re: I created an alternative to the YouTube algorithm to stop me wasting time

#44

Post by altrunox »

gylterud wrote: post #28

I found YouTube suggestions to be generally useless, so I have just disabled the suggestion sidebar completely[0]. Leaves more screen space for the video. The reason I found them useless is that the suggestions were too specialised. I usually do not want to watch a dozen videos on the same topic. I usually want to watch one high quality video about it, then move on. Same with channels. I do not want to follow ten cha…

I had no idea uBlock could do that!

I just removed my Twitter treding topics, awesome.

Re: I created an alternative to the YouTube algorithm to stop me wasting time

#45

Post by labster »

jmnicolas wrote: post #17
grantlmiller wrote: post #6

This is great. I feel the same way, but have been trying to train the existing YT algorithm. I started using my work email youtube profile to actively subscribe/like/save videos that I want to see more of (about hiring, management, culture, Kubernetes, devtools etc). At the same time I aggressively choose "not interested" and "do not suggest this channel" when the algorithm isn't suggesting what I want (more detail:…

Don't bother: I tried literally for years to teach the algorithm that I don't eat fish but it stills offer fish cooking videos to this day.

Wouldn’t it just be easier to start eating fish?

Re: I created an alternative to the YouTube algorithm to stop me wasting time

#47

Post by SirLotsaLocks »

pantelisk wrote: post #25

The youtube algorithm is working extremely well, to the point where I find hard to believe it does not have any human in the loop or active moderation. I have discovered so many interesting types of music and documentaries and subculture/subgenres on it. It manages to hit my interests so well, that I rarely go to netflix nor spotify anymore for discovery. I 'll either directly go watch something that I 've chosen on…

Yeah same, I guess it depends on how much data they have on you. I've been using youtube and google products in general for a long time and only recently have been breaking away, but I'm sure that that has somewhat helped. Especially considering I created a new account and the reccomendations are not so great, and youtubes in general. Still its pretty good so ¯\ (ツ) /¯

Re: I created an alternative to the YouTube algorithm to stop me wasting time

#48

Post by frankosaurus »

stingraycharles wrote: post #29
pantelisk wrote: post #25

The youtube algorithm is working extremely well, to the point where I find hard to believe it does not have any human in the loop or active moderation. I have discovered so many interesting types of music and documentaries and subculture/subgenres on it. It manages to hit my interests so well, that I rarely go to netflix nor spotify anymore for discovery. I 'll either directly go watch something that I 've chosen on…

Are you for real? YouTube seems to do terrible at the recommendations. It cannot even recognize that when I’m behind the computer, I’m not interested in watching documentaries and when I’m behind my Apple TV, I’m not interested in listening to music videos. It’s such basic stuff, let alone the actual recommendations; it just keeps rehashing the same channels. “Oh you watched a video about the US elections, let’s bomb…

I actually agree with OP. YouTube recommendations on my primary account are quite good.

I attribute this to careful curation of my logged-in viewing habits.

> you watched a video about the US elections

That's the problem. As a rule, I never view political, celebrity, or clickbait videos when logged in. There is such a vast amount of dreck in these categories, you're sure to be disappointed sooner or later.

If I see a political/clickbait video that catches my eye, I open it in an Incognito tab.

Re: I created an alternative to the YouTube algorithm to stop me wasting time

#49

Post by PopeDotNinja »

smoe wrote: post #34

Really cool project, going to play around with it, since I wanted to experiment with alternative algorithms for these kind of platforms for a while, but didn't found time to get started. My biggest gripe with YouTube recommendations, or any service of that kind (Spotify, Amazon, etc.), is that they don't understand what aspects of the content I value. So it is a huge hit and miss. Sometimes it works, because I guess…

I wish I could explicitly tell YouTube “don’t ever recommend videos I’ve seen.”

Re: I created an alternative to the YouTube algorithm to stop me wasting time

#50

Post by ChrisLovejoy »

PopeDotNinja wrote: post #49
smoe wrote: post #34

Really cool project, going to play around with it, since I wanted to experiment with alternative algorithms for these kind of platforms for a while, but didn't found time to get started. My biggest gripe with YouTube recommendations, or any service of that kind (Spotify, Amazon, etc.), is that they don't understand what aspects of the content I value. So it is a huge hit and miss. Sometimes it works, because I guess…

I wish I could explicitly tell YouTube “don’t ever recommend videos I’ve seen.”

amen! I wish you could crank up exploration cf. exploitation in your settings or something
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