Live data from Hacker News

Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count

twitter.com

41–50 of 508 posts

Re: Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count

#41
post #30

Next, IMDB only allows ratings between 8-10.

I don't think they document it, beyond being a "weighted average", but as I understand things, they already do give one stars a very low weight, in addition to a weight of zero in some cases.

Re: Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count

#42
post #31

'member when reddit removed the visible downvote count back in 2014, that was really one of the end of something there https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/28hjga/reddi... Just a random screenshot cause haven't found anything else in Google https://i.imgur.com/3y8W2mk.png You could see if a comment was highly engaging despite at the bottom, say 200/210 (upvotes/downvotes). Nowdays you only see the + or - n…

Ironically YouTube feels a lot like Reddit to me - nothing really changed there the past 5 years, no matter what happened on the business side.

Some of it is really weird. Like YouTube trying to get into streaming, but never actually implementing anything for it - no clips, no emotes really, but the weird "create a channel from your personal GMail account" thing is still there. It's like the people there were told nothing but a keyword.

Re: Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count

#43
post #8

It's quickly getting to the point where being exposed to youtube at all just opens you up to a ton of intentional manipulation from an organization who's entire product is manipulating people for pay. It's probably best to completely avoid all of it.

I could not repair half the things I have learned to repair without Youtube. 100% worth having to look out for manipulative antifeatures, in my book.

I'm happy for the content in any form, but a bunch of things would be easier with a wall of text and a couple pictures I could scroll through.

Don't forget to like and subscribe and support me on patreon.

Re: Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count

#44
If someone (companies included) is so sensitive to being down-voted perhaps the internet isn't for them. In the case of one campaign of which I'm aware, Lucasfilm and Disney has been hammered by Star Wars fans, down-voting their videos because they have no other way to send a message to Disney that the personnel actions of Kathleen Kennedy have thrown the plans for the Mandalorian -- and it's connected shows -- into delays and uncertainty. I'm pretty sure Disney (and their shareholders) are more upset by the fact that #CancelDisneyPlus is still trending on Twitter, something that actually costs them share value. That YouTube would do this further shows that their platform is for big companies and brand-safe content free from negative perceptions and not "You" like their name implies.

Re: Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count

#45
post #20
post #9

This seems rather user-hostile. The downvote count is useful for identifying videos that aren't what they claim to be. And how about DIY videos that give terrible advice? A big downvote ratio will get most people's attention in a way that critical comments may not.

I agree that removing public dislikes is a pretty bad idea, but it's not that important of a tool in fighting misleading videos. I mean, there was once a HUGE glut of videos with misleading thumbnails/titles, and what stopped the glut was not dislikes, but rather Youtube's use of watch time as an important metric.

The reason downvotes didn't solve that issue was because you couldn't see the ratio until after you had clicked.

There was plugins that showed it when browsing and it made such a difference.

Re: Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count

#47
post #8

It's quickly getting to the point where being exposed to youtube at all just opens you up to a ton of intentional manipulation from an organization who's entire product is manipulating people for pay. It's probably best to completely avoid all of it.

I could not repair half the things I have learned to repair without Youtube. 100% worth having to look out for manipulative antifeatures, in my book.

What sort of stuff, and what alternatives have you tried?

If it's a vehicle, the Chilton's or Haynes (I'm sure there's a difference but I sure couldn't tell) manuals will cover just about anything you'd want to do.

If it's a piece of consumer electronics, iFixit usually has good teardown and repair guides (in the "annotated images and text" style) that cover a lot, though for some brands you can actually find factory repair manuals.

Home, property, etc, there exist plenty of books out there, and often enough, plenty of slightly bored retired people who have been doing whatever the task is forever, and who are happy to help someone learn the ropes.

Re: Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count

#48
post #22

How else is the mainstream supposed to spin reality? Entertainment giants used to more easily create the illusion of consensus, but web platforms like YouTube completely mess with their power by showing downvotes.

Smells political alright. The Biden admin disabled comments on all official The White House channel videos pretty quickly into their administration. Most videos have a tremendously high dislike to like ratio, the most recent is 3.4K dislikes to 205 likes. I don't know who they expect to consume their Youtube content but it apparently isn't the establishment's voter base. This is another brick in the wall that is Yout…

You think Youtube is removing dislikes because of white house vids that average out less than ~25000 views each?

Re: Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count

#49
post #30

Next, IMDB only allows ratings between 8-10.

I think this is the appropriate analogy. Is a Hollywood movie studio being "harassed" if people give a movie negative reviews? No. Neither are youtube videos that get downvoted. And yet here we are. You will consume what the people who write the algorithm want you to, you will like it and you if you dont no one will know.

Re: Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count

#50
This does not seem to me like a move to "improve the user experience", but rather to hide the public opinion about certain topics, such as politics or consumer media. Others name examples here in this thread, such as Ghostbusters (2016) and their trailers and recent Biden administration videos on the White house channel.

I am curious __in a genuine way__ if someone who might consider themselves "woke left" (at the lack of a better word) here on HN who sees this as a positive development? (I.e., someone who views both aforementioned examples very positively)

Or actually, anyone regardless of political leaning for that matter?

Because personally I find it hard to construct even a simple argument for the viewpoint that hiding this information in any improves the website and/or society at large, with youtube being an important piece of infrastructure for the entire world right now. This instead would just seem like google continuing down their path of abandoning their "don't be evil" slogan.

Post reply on HN