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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

#391
post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, this might be why. [0] That's a Biden video hosted by CNBC Television that currently has 571 upvotes and 1400 dislikes. There there is the Joe Biden channel, where almost all videos have at least 50% dislike count compared to upvotes, and a significant number have more dislikes that upvotes. [1] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0f2D0GxCuBo [1] https://www.youtube.com/c/JoeBiden/videos

Vote bombing long predates the Biden presidency.

This is not about vote bombing but a recent change made today. My comment shows one possibility, to hide that the videos of certain accounts have many dislikes. There are other accounts which are subject to vote bombing that have relatively constant levels per video of dislikes, so it doesn't appear in this case I mentioned that you drew a valid conclusion.

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

#392
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.

Regardless of direction, votes are also useful for misidentifying videos that are what they claim to be. Rare kudos to YT; thumbs-up for the anti-reductionists on this one.

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

#393
post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A while back they significantly increased the number of ads and also now show YouTube premium popups constantly. I would imagine it's had very little if any negative impact. Google knows YouTube is the only game in town.

For now, but if they keep treating users like shit, it creates a bigger and bigger opportunity for competition to pop in. You might be thinking it's super hard for someone like you or I to create a YouTube competitor. That's probably true, but what about Amazon or Netflix? Can you imagine if Netflix had a YouTube-like platform where, if you're a subscriber, you get no ads?

This is unlikely, because youtube has one thing that no other platform does, creators. How many youtubers would actually be willing to post on another website, let alone exclusively? How many fans would actually follow them? For already risk averse youtubers this is unlikely.

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

#394

What is going on in the comments to this article? Why has this relatively minor youtube feature change dredged up such significant vitriol and conspiracy-adjacent rhetoric in the hacker news comments? Skimming all the comments here I'm seeing lots of flaming and hand-wringing. I don't have any actual measures, but to me it feels like significantly more than normal even for an article about a high-profile site/company…

What bothers me is that the title is even a little misleading. They're removing the count of dislikes (which obviously has an impact) but the dislike feature itself is still there.

>What bothers me is that the title is even a little misleading.

This is the exact type of comment I'm talking about.

This does very little to contribute to discussion while simultaneously implying an undercurrent of conspiracy.

Why even bother pointing this out? It's extremely minor at most and the link is to twitter.com. It's not as if it would take long to read the link.

Just the second part of you comment: >They're removing the count of dislikes (which obviously has an impact) but the dislike feature itself is still there. would have sufficed.

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

#396
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue that HN got better after they hid the karma (net of 1 + up - down) on a per-comment basis (even though I was initially opposed to the change at the time). They can still use like/dislike metrics to decide which videos to offer you and in what sort order, so there's still some signal available.

HN still fades text if a comment is below a certain threshold.

IMO, HN's fade is worse than just showing the like/dislike ratio. I believe some users see a faded comment and subconsciously get a preference to hit the downvote before even fully reading a comment.

Imagine if Youtube automatically showed unpopular videos in a permanently faded mode; this would be even more user-hostile.

Just give the users the count or ratio, and let them interpret (or ignore) it.

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

#397
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.

Dislike is just way for some trigger-easy crowd to show how fragile they can be.

Most of the time I found it useless, I don't mind at all it gets removed.

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

#398
post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My options now would be to spend a minute or two watching it or reading the comments Fully agreed with you on everything you said here, but that specific line I quoted sounds a bit optimistic to me. You would only waste a minute or two if the video author decided to actually start his video "for real" from the very beginning, instead of spending the first few minutes on his entire life story (that is not even relat…

For instructional videos I usually click through to skim before fully committing, especially if they waffle at the start. It works easier on desktop than mobile though. And don't forget the Wadsworth Constant :) https://www.dictionary.com/e/pop-culture/the-wadsworth-const...

I'm not sure if it still works, but you used to be able to append something like '&wadsworth' to the end of youtube links and it would act like a timestamp link 30% of the way through the video.
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