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

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

#141

Post by retsibsi »

EricE wrote: post #131
retsibsi wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh I know, I am pretty cynical and not exactly outraged here. But although they don't care about what's good for us, they do care about what will keep us on the platform. And if it gets harder to find good stuff and filter out the dross, that could conceivably have negative consequences for YouTube in the long run.

I'm not outraged - I'm amused. The ultimate admission the only way they can spread their messaging is through force, not honest competition of ideas. How superior. Nothing proves you have a worthy argument better than outright hiding from dissent. Again, they don't care if you stay on the platform. If they did, they wouldn't touch it. The disagreement buttons were added in the first place because they increase and ma…

> Again, they don't care if you stay on the platform.

Why not? Even if you're right that they care more about propaganda than money, what's the point of propagandising to an empty room?

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

#142

Post by aquadrop »

motbob wrote: post #20
retsibsi wrote: 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.

Dislikes are good not just for identifying bad videos, but also good videos. You can see it in the like/dislike ratio. The higher the better, videos with ratio around >98-99% have very high probability of being good etc

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

#143

Post by colaclanth »

ErikVandeWater wrote: post #55
argvargc wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a site tracking these, some of the stats on older videos with high views are crazy (down the page): https://81m.org

It's interesting to compare this to the Trump Whitehouse Archive: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCITMedGC5PA-zMrLTH5-kg Almost the exact inverse like/dislike ratio. Biden received more votes than any other presidential candidate in history, AND they should skew much younger than Trump voters. So why is it that the Biden White House channel struggles so much with likes vs dislikes?

Probably because Biden supporters are less 'online' and there aren't that many dedicated supporters of his (as in there are more people who simply think biden is better than the alternative than actually liking him). Contrasted to a personality like Trump who amassed an online dedicated cult following, in which they would literally try to decipher every word he said for hidden messages from the God emperor himself.

In the same way that Twitter seems to be full of anti-capitalist anarchist communists, demographics of the real world turn out to be a lot different than social media makes it seem.

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

#144

Post by riffic »

Covzire wrote: post #22
ravenstine wrote: post #5

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…

> Content creators of all stripes are absolutely desperate for an alternative platform

Peertube exists

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PeerTube

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

#145

Post by ryantgtg »

Syonyk wrote: post #47
JasonFruit wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I replaced a 12V battery on my car this morning, thanks to a youtube vid. I didn't try any alternative sources, because the 2 minute video was perfect! And I didn't get sucked into any other vids or see any ads or anything.

My recent experience with iFixit was not great. I replaced a battery on a 2012 MacBook Pro Retina, and the tutorial included about 40 extraneous steps (that only mattered if you were using a certain, optional, glue removal goo -edit: and it was not referred to as optional, nor were alternatives offered. I used fishing line). I saw speculation that they intentionally made it seem more difficult so people would be more inclined to bring the laptop into a shop. It wasn't until I checked youtube, and saw a very similar procedure, that I realized the steps were unnecessary - via the comments! A few people noted that you could skip all the steps prior to 11 minutes in. And they were right.

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

#146

Post by retsibsi »

mancerayder wrote: post #132
EricE wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your first mistake was thinking that you are the user they care about serving :p

.. combined with the idea that there's much of an alternative. If the content creators I like are there...

In the short run they can get away with ~anything. In the long run though, anything that upsets users makes the rise of a true competitor marginally more likely.

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

#147

Post by gbolcer »

This is just a side effect of national politics. Federal courts rules that the public has a right to information.

https://knightcolumbia.org/documents/a07ecc2a26

Despite that, Youtube is trying to counter bad engagement. Several of Biden's content team's postings of youtube content have gotten tens of thousand of likes, but millions of dislikes resulting in a content "ratio". Downvoters have not been able to be discredited as bots or automated activity.

This isn't a general policy. It's a very specific damage control and political advocacy cloaked in a generic policy.

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

#148

Post by paulcole »

EricE wrote: post #92
retsibsi wrote: 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.

Your first mistake was thinking that you are the user they care about serving :p

Can you clarify this for me? I have always assumed that since I’m the one watching the video I’m their customer/user?

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

#149

Post by tayo42 »

retsibsi wrote: 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.

Are people really using votes like that? You putting your trust in deciding quality in a vote count? There's so much wrong with that.

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

#150

Post by TheTrotters »

tayo42 wrote: post #149
retsibsi wrote: 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.

Are people really using votes like that? You putting your trust in deciding quality in a vote count? There's so much wrong with that.

It’s the worst solution except for every other we’ve ever tried.
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