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A man who uploaded 2M videos to YouTube [video]

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Re: A man who uploaded 2M videos to YouTube [video]

#172

The problem of web content is the search and recommendation systems have no opinion on skill, effort, scholarship or accuracy. It's become disconnected so much that metrics of quality are seen as arbitrary, unrelated attributes. There is literally zero reward for hard work. It's actually more likely to hurt than help you because original scholarship or novel insights is definitionally more dissimilar to existing thin…

videogamedunkey had a great video making fun of the issue of content spam vs quality content [0]. It takes a ton of time and effort to create new content. Meanwhile some people just make low-effort reaction videos every day, getting way more views.

[0] https://youtu.be/VZzZKuQUguk

Re: A man who uploaded 2M videos to YouTube [video]

#173

The problem of web content is the search and recommendation systems have no opinion on skill, effort, scholarship or accuracy. It's become disconnected so much that metrics of quality are seen as arbitrary, unrelated attributes. There is literally zero reward for hard work. It's actually more likely to hurt than help you because original scholarship or novel insights is definitionally more dissimilar to existing thin…

hard work != good content by default

If something is highly popular, no matter how utterly trash it is in your opinion, they must be doing something correctly. The right content at the right time for the right audience.

Re: A man who uploaded 2M videos to YouTube [video]

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They can't tell the difference between a great film and a terrible film - they walk away thinking "I enjoyed that". If I walk away and think "I enjoyed that" then by all measures that was a great film. A great film will please most of not all of its target audience. When a film is shown in Cannes the target audience is cinema enthusiasts who seek deeper meaning and interesting new ways to use the medium. When a new…

> They may have a different taste, but that taste is no better or worse than anyone else's. This is often repeated like it's some universal truth. Enjoying a film (or anything) doesn't mean it's great - this is a very hard to explain idea though, as it's something that is experienced in the core of your being. It's like trying to explain why small talk is important to someone from a low-context culture - there's prob…

> But I guarantee you that anyone with the ability to convincingly articulate why The Office is better than Rebels of the Neon God isn't arguing in good faith. And there's a reason for that.

I'm pretty sure that Rebels of the Neon God isn't "better" at parodying office work, and I'm pretty sure there are less laughs to be had in that film too.

So yes, I'm pretty sure The Office is "better" at a lot of things, and while I have not seen Rebels of the Neon God (yet) I'm pretty sure it's also "better" than The Office, but at different things.

Re: A man who uploaded 2M videos to YouTube [video]

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On average production quality seems to correlate inversely with accuracy and actual knowledge on Youtube. It kinda makes sense, most Youtube channels seem to be one-man-shows, if the production quality is good, the dude doing it is basically an A/V person at that point and you're looking at P(A/V person AND knowledgeable in X) vs. P(knowledgeable in X).

Considering the channels I follow, I can't see the correlation you mention, or we have a different definition for "production quality".

Personally I see three bands of content:

1. Produced-for-broadcast-TV content has the highest production costs, and the lowest technical detail. Example: Scrapheap Challenge / Junkyard Wars.

2. Midrange youtube has medium-low production costs, and medium technical detail. Example: Project Binky.

3. University lecture youtube has low production costs, and high technical detail. Example: Look up 'laplace smoothing'

Of course, it's far from an absolute rule - clearly, you can find low-technical-detail content in any production cost band :)

Re: A man who uploaded 2M videos to YouTube [video]

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On average production quality seems to correlate inversely with accuracy and actual knowledge on Youtube. It kinda makes sense, most Youtube channels seem to be one-man-shows, if the production quality is good, the dude doing it is basically an A/V person at that point and you're looking at P(A/V person AND knowledgeable in X) vs. P(knowledgeable in X).

Considering the channels I follow, I can't see the correlation you mention, or we have a different definition for "production quality".

Channels that get big for the sake of having amazing quality tend to pick up production quality at some point, probably by hiring people. So if you're watching older/larger channels, the correlation won't be as obvious. On the other hand, we can time warp! This is the oldest video on YouTube from Veritasium: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU2dZz18P0c

I'm sure there were plenty of even gankier ones prior since by that time he already had his nice logo sorted out, a pretty good broadcasting setup, and more. In any case, here's his latest video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1bSDnuIPbo

Re: A man who uploaded 2M videos to YouTube [video]

#178
post #6

Got to give this guy some credit. It's ridiculous that videos showing StackOverflow questions and answers are more discoverable via YouTube than the underlying content via direct search. Not sure if it's Google or users to blame, probably both, but this guy is making a mockery of it and probably profiting in the process.

A few months back I searched YouTube for PostGIS videos on a particular issue I was having. A couple of his videos came up, which were quite disappointing once I saw the format. But they gave me enough context to be able to find the actual Stack Overflow posts the videos were generated from, which I hadn't found in my previous searches due to not understanding the topic well enough to have the right keywords for good results to bubble above all the irrelevant results.

Re: A man who uploaded 2M videos to YouTube [video]

#179
post #89
post #57

I hate this trash. If you search for some obscure math topic on YouTube you'll 100% get these type of Wikipedia-to-speech videos instead of actual lectures.

Can we use the downvote button enough on youtube to get rid of it?

I wonder how much engagement with the downvote button has decreased since the counter has been removed. Seems like they harmed the vast majority of the YouTube ecosystem to save the feelings of a very small number of politically powerful individuals.

Re: A man who uploaded 2M videos to YouTube [video]

#180

The guy in question appears even stranger if you try to look up "what he is". According to the information he puts up on the internet about himself, he is presumably (..?) an accomplished individual, being affiliated with MariaDB and seemingly being knowledgable about linux/IT stuff (this latter not surprising, to the extent he is the one that has set up that youtube monstrosity.) But then again, if you try to browse…

This comes across as somewhat bullying, intentionally or unintentionally. The person may be neurodivergent and the Twitter account may be a reflection of that.

How is accurately describing their public persona “bullying” them? That seems to be stretching the definition in service of virtue signaling.
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