No Dislikes has officially ruined YouTube for me • Hacker News Board

Re: No Dislikes has officially ruined YouTube for me

#261

Post by thinkingemote » Tue, May 10, 2022, 1:05 PM UTC

jmyeet wrote: post #184

The only explanation for getting rid of dislike count that makes sense to me is to make big brands happy as their videos can't be made to look bad with a high dislike count and they can't be "dislike bombed" for things that may be unrelated to the content (eg the recent Activision-Blizzard scandals). Why? Because in every other way (and every way for the viewer), this makes Youtube worse. So it's a hell of a price to…

I believe the official explanation: dislikes are hurting some YouTubers as a form of "crowd bullying".

They were a signal or message that the message (but not the quality) was not approved.

Dislikes were being used as a form of critique of the content. They were a kind of mob/crowd behaviour than a personal like/dislike.

The YouTubers were both marginalised people, those waging culture war stuff and corporations.

By removing the crowd mob behaviour they also removed the intended crowd sourced recomendation system.

Re: No Dislikes has officially ruined YouTube for me

#262

Post by bald42 » Tue, May 10, 2022, 1:06 PM UTC

Hm nothing has changed recently for me. I still use my old youtube brand account for youtube though may be that helps? I get recommendations on stuff from my subscriptions, similar topics and previous (youtube) searches + a small bit of current affairs.

Re: No Dislikes has officially ruined YouTube for me

#263

Post by cobbal » Tue, May 10, 2022, 1:06 PM UTC

douglaswlance wrote: post #178

Hit the 3 dot menu button on a video, then click either "not interested" or don't suggest channel. It only takes a little effort every visit to tune your recommendations.

But even if you hit the "don't recommend" button on every "mix" playlist you see for months, don't expect YT to get the hint. I do wish the algorithm was a bit more tunable, but that's not really the Google way.

Re: No Dislikes has officially ruined YouTube for me

#264

Post by warp » Tue, May 10, 2022, 1:06 PM UTC

sph wrote: post #44

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…

> Recommending tons of videos I've already seen or recommending really, really old videos from people I normally watch. It's always done this, but it seems worse recently. Also, subscribe to a channel, get recommended their entire repertoire of the last decade. I have stopped subscribing, and I'm actively unsubscribing from most channels except the very small ones that post twice a year and I don't want to miss. What…

I'm the opposite, I subscribed to lots of channels so that I always have new content from creators I like -- and never have to look at the recommendations.

Re: No Dislikes has officially ruined YouTube for me

#265

Post by washadjeffmad » Tue, May 10, 2022, 1:08 PM UTC

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…

I would appreciate being able to filter by audience age. If 90% of the views are from minors, there's zero chance I'm going to engage whether or not they trick me into allowing the video to play.

I would even be in favor of moving any content created by or for an under-18 audience to YouTube Kids. There's no reason it should be allowed on a platform for adults.

I know Google doesn't respect their customers, but we shouldn't let them waste our time.

Re: No Dislikes has officially ruined YouTube for me

#266

Post by toastercat » Tue, May 10, 2022, 1:10 PM UTC

On another note, forcing all videos under 1-minute to be YouTube shorts is a horrible idea. My dog recently passed away, and I started uploading short clips of him to share with my grieving family. Now anytime I watch a clip of my dog, it's followed automatically by a short of some influencer I've never heard of toting some new hot meme.

Re: No Dislikes has officially ruined YouTube for me

#267

Post by alexb_ » Tue, May 10, 2022, 1:11 PM UTC

mrkramer wrote: post #251

belter wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see a Business opportunity for a new YouTube specific search engine, that will allow for discovery of new content but will filter all that crap:-)

I had some similar ideas but YouTube can just block it or cut API access. But would they dare? Antitrust lawsuit is glooming over them.

Telling someone they can't use your service is not anti-competitive.

Re: No Dislikes has officially ruined YouTube for me

#268

Post by polynomial » Tue, May 10, 2022, 1:15 PM UTC

As a data scientist removing dislikes seems as bizarre as saying you can no longer use true/false negatives in any of your evaluation metrics, but are limited to true/false positives.

But YT is only limited users to that, and has stated they themselves will continue to use dislikes in the algorithm to serve up content.

So, YT using dislikes to serve you content, good. You using dislikes to select content, bad. Got it.

Speculatively, I imagine they just make a lot of money off total crap, which people see right through and don't like, and letting people see what their fellow users don't like just hits YT too hard in their already obscenely fat wallet. But that's just a guess, obvi.

Re: No Dislikes has officially ruined YouTube for me

#269

Post by jcranberry » Tue, May 10, 2022, 1:18 PM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #203

jcranberry wrote: post #175

You can tell YouTube you're not interested in the video or to explicitly not recommend a channel.

Not without logging in. "But how would that work if you're not" you ask? Simple: YT is already tracking cookies or session. The block should apply to the session itself. That said, I'm so done with Google.

Could you have even disliked without logging in?

Re: No Dislikes has officially ruined YouTube for me

#270

Post by darepublic » Tue, May 10, 2022, 1:19 PM UTC

FartyMcFarter wrote: post #148

philliphaydon wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have been using it most recently to shield myself from an avalanche of Depp and Heard trial clips seemingly created to support Depp.