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No Dislikes has officially ruined YouTube for me

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Re: No Dislikes has officially ruined YouTube for me

#141

Post by joshbaptiste »

philliphaydon wrote: post #125
alexb_ wrote: post #105

I've recently heard about this YouTube account named Roel Van De Paar. If you've looked up any error message on YouTube recently, you've probably run into him. Because of the "no dislikes" change, he's everywhere now. And by everywhere, I mean EVERYWHERE. The account has over 2 million videos. Approximately 0.2% of ALL videos on the ENTIRE platform of YouTube can be attributed to this account, and if you check now th…

You've probably ruined my recommendations forever now. :( I pretty much only stick to subscriber channels now except for stuff people send me. Since there's no dislikes I just don't browse the stuff available anymore. YouTube is definitely worse off without the dislike counter.

yup.. any YT links that are sent by friends.. I open in incognito mode to not ruin my recommendations

Re: No Dislikes has officially ruined YouTube for me

#142

Post by padraigf »

ageitgey wrote: post #15

I don't personally think the dislike button is the explanation. But something seems to have changed in the Youtube recommendations algo in the last few weeks. In my experience, the algo has gotten very noticeably worse recently: - Recommending lots of 6 - 12 year old videos on topics I'm interested in (who cares about a 12 year old product review?) - Recommending tons of videos I've already seen or recommending reall…

Yes, the recommendations page is awful.

For me, the stupidest thing it does is recommend you the same video again and again, when you never click on it. 'Hey, you've recommended that same video to me 20 times now, and I haven't clicked on it, maybe take a hint!'

It's staggering, with all the smart people they hire at Google, that the front page of one of their main products is so dumb.

Re: No Dislikes has officially ruined YouTube for me

#143

Post by Karsteski »

I use the extension Unhook (on Firefox) that allows me to keep a clean YouTube homepage without recommendations, home page, side bars etc. etc. Very useful

Additionally, the extension Return YouTube Dislike is very helpful as well. Take control of your browser, for as long as we can.

Re: No Dislikes has officially ruined YouTube for me

#144

Post by andai »

dan1234 wrote: post #135
130e13a wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

where does the extension get the data from, though? it's not like they just have to remove a `display: none` somewhere.

The dislike count is still in the data returned by the YouTube API[0], so they're probably getting it from there. [0] https://developers.google.com/youtube/analytics/metrics#disl...

Are you sure? I remember reading that data would be removed at the end of last year.

Re: No Dislikes has officially ruined YouTube for me

#145

Post by informalo »

user_7832 wrote: post #113
130e13a wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

where does the extension get the data from, though? it's not like they just have to remove a `display: none` somewhere.

Apparently some previously-scrapped data for older videos that gets updated, and heuristic estimates combined with extrapolating data from those who use that extension and like/dislike. LTT did a video where they found the accuracy really good. Beating Google at their own game, they (apparently) are.

I think the accuracy doesn't even matter too much. Personally, I believe I base my decision to watch the video after clicking on it on the ballpark the like/dislike ratio is in. "Almost only likes", "2/3 likes", "50/50 likes/dislikes", ... For that purpose, the extension does its job.

Re: No Dislikes has officially ruined YouTube for me

#147

Post by ageitgey »

devoutsalsa wrote: post #104
ageitgey wrote: post #15

I don't personally think the dislike button is the explanation. But something seems to have changed in the Youtube recommendations algo in the last few weeks. In my experience, the algo has gotten very noticeably worse recently: - Recommending lots of 6 - 12 year old videos on topics I'm interested in (who cares about a 12 year old product review?) - Recommending tons of videos I've already seen or recommending reall…

Are you logged in to device, like a Roku or PlayStation, where one of your kids would be watching and/or rating videos?

It's a good guess, but not in this case. I have a separate account that only I use.

Re: No Dislikes has officially ruined YouTube for me

#148

Post by FartyMcFarter »

philliphaydon wrote: post #125
alexb_ wrote: post #105

I've recently heard about this YouTube account named Roel Van De Paar. If you've looked up any error message on YouTube recently, you've probably run into him. Because of the "no dislikes" change, he's everywhere now. And by everywhere, I mean EVERYWHERE. The account has over 2 million videos. Approximately 0.2% of ALL videos on the ENTIRE platform of YouTube can be attributed to this account, and if you check now th…

You've probably ruined my recommendations forever now. :( I pretty much only stick to subscriber channels now except for stuff people send me. Since there's no dislikes I just don't browse the stuff available anymore. YouTube is definitely worse off without the dislike counter.

There's a "don't recommend channel" option if you click the 3 dots button on a video.

I use this liberally for all sorts of reasons and it makes my recommendations much better.

Re: No Dislikes has officially ruined YouTube for me

#149

Post by reportgunner »

If you use uBlock Origin or similar, try to block all images on youtube.com

You become immune to flashy thumbnails and you actually have to read the video title and think twice if you really wanna watch it. If you want to get extra spicy block all of the recommendation on the front page to reduce it to just the logo and the search bar, forcing you to actually think and remember the videos you want to watch.

I have been using youtube like this for the past 3 years and I don't really notice the decline, though I have to admit that the search results are at an all time low - if I don't write the title of the video verbatim I often don't find the video even if it's there.

Re: No Dislikes has officially ruined YouTube for me

#150

Post by krapp »

narrator wrote: post #126
krapp wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spambot comments have exploded recently too, a lot of channel owners are complaining. Something definitely seems broken. I wonder if any of this affects GMail as well.

The Dead Internet Theory is becoming more and more true all the time.

No, it really isn't, that's just a crack conspiracy theory that took off because people no longer have the capacity to judge reality by any metrics besides cynicism and memeability.

There really are billions of actual people using the internet all the time.

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