Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

471–480 of 508 posts

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

#471

Post by hnick »

fuzxi wrote: post #398
hnick wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think it was &wadsworth=1 and no they removed the fun :(

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

#472

Post by roryokane »

qiqitori wrote: post #458
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree. I notice I find comment sections of sites that allow downvotes (e.g. HN, Reddit) much easier to navigate and filter than sites like Facebook and Twitter that only allow upvotes. Only allowing upvoting gives you similar dynamics to partisan primaries in the US - the most polarizing content filters to the top instead of sinking to the bottom.

HN doesn't really allow downvotes though. At least not unless you've reached a million karma points (from my understanding).

I became able to downvote after reaching 500 karma. The minimum requirement might have changed to 1000 since then, I forget.

Even after reaching that karma amount, you are only able to downvote comments within a day of their posting. After a day, only upvotes are possible.

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

#473

Post by kelnos »

One of the things I really like about HN is that you can't see the moderation counts on other people's posts. If YT is going to kill dislike counts, they should also kill like counts.

They can still algorithmically bury things that are severely disliked, and promote things that are heavily liked. The video uploader, though, should be able to see the counts in order to get some feedback as to the quality of their videos.

Absolute numbers of likes/dislikes turns things into a popularity contest and fuels social media addiction. If you can only see the counts on your own content, you can't compare yourself to someone else and find yourself lacking (or vice versa).

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

#474

Post by luckylion »

notriddle wrote: post #459
EricE wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just the white house. There's wholesale rejection that is embarrassing and counter to the messaging being pushed my the media and cultural elites. Disney with the Gina Corano firing has been a huge source of continued embarrassment. Widespread rejection of woke takeovers of popular culture in general are problematic so no, I'm not surprised downvotes are getting remove universally. Much easier to hide reality whe…

It would be even easier to hide reality by... actually hiding reality. YouTube is closed-source, and they already use fuzzy numbering for dislike counts. They could’ve rigged it so that, instead of actually displaying the number of dislikes on the WH videos, they instead displayed the logarithm. How would you know? The fact that they are removing the dislike count entirely instead shows me that the problem is not lim…

> They could’ve rigged it so that, instead of actually displaying the number of dislikes on the WH videos, they instead displayed the logarithm. How would you know?

a few people getting together and disliking something and not seeing the dislike grow at all would turn that into an embarrassment.

> They are hiding that number on the entire website, because they are trying to solve a perceived problem that affects the entire website.

I agree. Negativity, dissent and open conflict don't sell ads to corporations well. Since that's Youtube's primary (only?) goal, it makes sense to switch video likes/dislikes to the same mode that comment likes/dislikes went. You can only express agreement in public, disagreement or quality issues can only be stated privately.

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

#475

Post by africanboy »

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.

most of the votes (up and down) don't come from real people and do not represent real users' opinions and are casted for the most stupid reasons, like in DIY video example I am friend with the author or am friend of a competitor.

there is nothing more hostile to users than the fake information YouTube is providing

I would go as far as to remove the votes completely and sort the videos randomly

It's the same old story of HN downvotes

They happen randomly, sometimes users are targeted by bots that downvote everything they write and, most of all, if there is no way to know who downvoted you, the only way to survive it is to make a new account, because "moderators" don't care, their job is not to protect users, but to protect their employer.

Same goes for YouTube they are an ads company disguised as a UGC platform.

Advertisers and Premium subscribers are the real users.

Wanna really be user-friendly?

Show voters' ids!

We all know it will never happen.

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

#477

Post by africanboy »

IncRnd wrote: post #374
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.

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

and that's a good reason to hide downvotes then

if the spin becomes "Biden wants it" without any proof, Biden videos will keep being downvoted only because those who oppose to him think he is censoring YouTube

But that's not what downvotes on YouTube should be used for

I am sure Biden as the President of the USA has the power to ask YouTube to reset the counters and call it a mistake, there would be no need to change the entire platform for everybody else

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

#478

Post by africanboy »

water8 wrote: post #417
viraptor wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WH disabling comments on its videos is not against free speech. It's not about allowing you to shout about your issues wherever you want with everyone having to see it. Disabling comments on official communication is a good move whether it's gov or private company announcements. They won't have to deal with some top upvoted comment with: incorrect summary, incorrect restatement of something, abuse at the account or o…

Let’s cut the BS. It’s about not looking bad. Its that simple

I think it's more about make the commenters not look bad (in this case American people)

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

#480

Post by aquadrop »

lightgreen wrote: post #177
aquadrop wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Comparison of likes to views works well enough. Actually, they don't even need likes, they can understand good and bad videos just by analysing how long viewers spent viewing the video. Likes (and dislikes) are needed mostly for viewers who might want to feel helpful.

I don't need "them" to analyse it, I want it for myself.
Post reply on HN