Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count • Hacker News Board

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

#341

Post by voussoir » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 1:19 AM UTC

drdeca wrote: post #288

kbenson wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, they aren't removing the button, or a way for users to register their dislike or track that they already disliked a video (I assume), just the count of how many other people disliked it. As a matter of engagement, I'm not sure how much that statistic brings to the table. I agree it might make filtering out crap content somewhat harder, but I'm not sure how good it ever was for that. It might be that the…

Personally, I have frequently wished that the downvote button on youtube _comments_ wasn’t fake. (Last I heard, it currently doesn’t even send a packet to any servers when you click it. It used to, until google+ iirc [edit: see correction/update provided by voussoir in the reply. Turns out it does now. Thanks for the update/correction.]) The inability to downvote substantially alters what is said/ranked highly, I thi…

> Last I heard, it currently doesn’t even send a packet to any servers when you click it.

Just tested. It makes a post to

  /youtubei/v1/comment/perform_comment_action

with a parameter ?key and a payload containing "actions" both of which are long alphanumeric strings.

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

#342

Post by jacurtis » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 1:20 AM UTC

ma2rten wrote: post #293

EricE wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Right, according to the tweet this is done based on feedback from creators.

Yeah it's mainly to discourage dislike trains.

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

#343

Post by throwitaway1235 » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 1:20 AM UTC

How much do you want to bet the Biden admin made this request of Google because many of his speeches had more dislikes than likes?

They've deleted a bunch of his dislikes in the past.

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

#344

Post by racl101 » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 1:20 AM UTC

Well, they might as well remove the like button too cause the rating system will be useless now.

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

#345

Post by staff009 » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 1:23 AM UTC

Same here - you can' t down vote. IMHO this should be possible.

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

#346

Post by frosted-flakes » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 1:29 AM UTC

joshuak wrote: post #19

It seems to me the platforms that have the most trouble maintaining a grasp on reality are the ones that don’t allow down votes. Down votes are the cognitive immune system at work. Not that down votes are necessarily correct, but rather they provide increased resistance to propagation. Also you can hardly fix a problem by blinding yourself to it.

They're hiding the down-vote count, not removing them altogether.

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

#347

Post by eindiran » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 1:29 AM UTC

jimbob45 wrote: post #269

eindiran wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For certain values of exists. I would love to get off of YouTube completely, but until eg PeerTube actually gets a significant number of content creators to move over or upload in parallel, its going to be impossible to fight YT. It's a very chicken/egg problem. Thankfully, YT keeps doing user-hostile things, slowly pushing more people into trying out alternatives.

You just need hosting. Then, you can embed the video in your own page like JonTron did with NormalBoots. I know that’s a really esoteric example and I’m sorry.

I think this works very well for some use cases, but it misses out on one of the biggest value-adds of YouTube: discovery. YouTube allows you to find other related content; any competitor needs to provide something similar.

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

#348

Post by Fern_Blossom » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 1:30 AM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #340

Fern_Blossom wrote: post #332

Am I the only one that smells April Fools because the whole VW thing seemed so legit just the other day? No... just me? K...

That hadn't occurred to me and I initially felt foolish upon seeing your comment. But then I thought "What a brilliant way to test public reaction to tentative plans. If they love it, do it. If they hate it, go just kidding. "

You mean exactly what VW did and everyone has seemingly forgotten already?

Yea... I remember when April Fools was actually funny. Like the wifi setup that ran through your toilets. That gave me a giggle back in the day. The PR stunt was to do a funny, absurd joke. Now it's just a marketing testing bed.

Damn clouds need to get off my lawn.

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

#349

Post by seandoe » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 1:32 AM UTC

This is just like when they got rid of the star ratings. It annoyed me at the time, but it all makes sense. They want to take away tools that allow you to make your own click choices and doing so gives them more power to control what you ultimately click on.

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

#350

Post by frosted-flakes » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 1:33 AM UTC

mywacaday wrote: post #277

It's strange, I upvote pretty much without a thought but I will consider a downvote, it has to be sincerely offensive, wrong or dangerous to get a downvote. To me at least a downvote tells an important story.

Down-votes aren't being removed though, so that's still possible (the count will only be visible to the video uploader, just like HN).