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YouTube, the jewel of the internet

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Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#171

Post by [deleted] »

alonsonic wrote: post #101
tambourine_man wrote: post #70

Another great thing about YouTube not mentioned is the quality of comments. Something happened in the last 5 years or so that changed them profoundly. Once the laugh of the internet they are now one of the most wholesome in it. Almost unbelievable for a public site.

I'm fascinated by this. I feel the same way. Do we know if The YouTube team if ordering comments using some sort of sentiment analysis? This might be the key to moderating social media. Is almost like negative/toxic comments are shadow banned and relegated to the bottom of the comments section.

[deleted]

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#172

Post by mastax »

disntthinkthis wrote: post #158
fsckboy wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is how low we've sunk, you don't even say that youtube is adequate, you say it's the most adequate Just to add my anecdata to the mix, I'm waist deep in logging-in to gmail and workplace apps, etc, but to compensate have abandoned android for iPhone, and I never use google search, and while I watch plenty on youtube, it's never required me to log in so I've never logged in, I don't even have any idea how much it…

YouTube has been showing me a ton of channels with low Hundreds of views recently, and they’re very to my taste. Ymmv but they’re doing well at exactly what you’re complaining about in my experience

Yeah I've noticed that YouTube almost always recommends me one or two videos with less than 100 views now. Must be a relatively recent change. The videos are often pretty relevant and pretty good, which is a bit depressing. Seeing people put a lot of work into videos that nobody watches (by YouTube standards) is sad. Though that is the reality of most channels. Maybe this change will help them.

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#173

Post by Spastche »

mastax wrote: post #81

I'm going to go against the grain here and say my YouTube algorithm is great. Signing out of YouTube and viewing the default home page is a reminder of the horrors that lie beyond, but my little corner of it is a bit too good. There was a period of time semi-recently when the algorithm was better than my heuristics, too. I had associated too-good thumbnails with overproduced shallow clickbait videos churned out by co…

agreed. I've found some great music from youtube's algorythym (niche and rare old music comes up ALL THE TIME for some reason I don't understand but I'm not gonna argue), and it's definitely better than the youtube shorts one, which shows me bullshit all the time, whereas my main feed is mostly relevant stuff.

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#174

Post by stametseater »

tambourine_man wrote: post #70

Another great thing about YouTube not mentioned is the quality of comments. Something happened in the last 5 years or so that changed them profoundly. Once the laugh of the internet they are now one of the most wholesome in it. Almost unbelievable for a public site.

I think the comments have become much worse. Good channels used to have good comment sections where people had normal reasonable discussions about the topic of the video, but these days it seems like nearly every channel's comment section is filled with sycophantic noise, praising the video creator for being great and wonderful but saying very little of substance.

Of course I'm not talking about the comment sections of music video channels or provocative video essayers or front page youtubers like pewdiepie. Those were always abominable crap. I mean the small channels of that make niche but thoughtful content, that appeals to people with those niche interests. These sort of channels used to have good comment sections, not the spam and flamewars that people talk about when they say youtube comments were crap. Most of that is gone now, sacrificed for the 'greater good' I guess. The good got ironed out with the bad, and now everything is bland.

Just for instance, railfan videos (e.g. people who watch trains.) The comment sections used to be people giving personal anecdotes about interesting trains they had seen, or their uncle who worked on a similar train, various comments of that nature. Now it's all "Very interesting!", "Another excellent video", "Love these videos, keep them coming", "Great video Danny."

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#175

Post by kibwen »

mastax wrote: post #81

I'm going to go against the grain here and say my YouTube algorithm is great. Signing out of YouTube and viewing the default home page is a reminder of the horrors that lie beyond, but my little corner of it is a bit too good. There was a period of time semi-recently when the algorithm was better than my heuristics, too. I had associated too-good thumbnails with overproduced shallow clickbait videos churned out by co…

> Signing out of YouTube and viewing the default home page is a reminder of the horrors that lie beyond, but my little corner of it is a bit too good.

I resonate with the "a bit too good", so much so that I exclusively use YouTube in incognito mode because the recommendation algorithm is too addictive, and the content that it causes me to consume doesn't really do anything but waste my time in the long run.

I also second the "horrors that lie beyond", the stuff that regularly surfaces on the default YouTube home page would suffice as an excuse for aliens to blow up our planet and put a freeway through it.

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#176

Post by karaterobot »

I agree with the author that YouTube is a great resource. My appreciation of it went up a great deal when I started skipping ad inserts with uBlock, skipping sponsored content with SponsorBlock, and skipping the terrible recommendations and just going straight to my subscriptions with a descriptively named extension called Replace Youtube's Home with Subscriptions. Without those, I don't know whether I'd find it useful.

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#177

Post by sitkack »

crazygringo wrote: post #108
mastax wrote: post #81

I'm going to go against the grain here and say my YouTube algorithm is great. Signing out of YouTube and viewing the default home page is a reminder of the horrors that lie beyond, but my little corner of it is a bit too good. There was a period of time semi-recently when the algorithm was better than my heuristics, too. I had associated too-good thumbnails with overproduced shallow clickbait videos churned out by co…

Yup, I'm the same. I've totally given up on navigating anything except my home page, I'm actually astonished at how good it is. The newest videos from my favorite channels are always listed first, and then it's a smattering of older popular ones from the topics and channels I watch the most, and a handful of things "adjacent" to those that are sometimes not for me but sometimes become my new favorite rabbit hole, so…

I have had the YT algorithm "hunt me" for a weeks, keep recommending some what looks like a dumb-ass video, only when I finally cave in and watch it, I get it, I needed to see it. The thumbnail and the title didn't did it the opposite of justice. I even tried using the yt api to see if I could scrape the recommendations but they aren't in there. You would have to scrape the browser while logged in.

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#178

Post by bcrosby95 »

durandal1 wrote: post #102
AlbertCory wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lesson I get from all these replies is (shock & horror!): Kids are different . I hear of kids who are intelligent, energetic, curious... all those good things. Probably NURTURE (i.e. the parents) has something to do with that. But then: also NATURE. Not having any kids myself, I'm not going to preach.

The variety in temperament, interests and ability between even siblings varies greatly. The people most eager to share parenting advice is usually parents only one child who is calm and attentive :) I've seen several parents in that category have a second child and come out shocked. I'm believe that beyond a base level of food, clean clothes and love, your influence as a parent is marginal. It's also a wildly unpopul…

I wouldn't argue against intelligence being highly genetic.

But people usually aren't talking about intelligence. They're talking about success in life, be it career or school.

Our oldest had a terrible time at math early in this year, and the teacher thought she was doing well in the start because she never asked questions.

But the first practice test showed otherwise. After that we made a point to ensure she understands math. It was a rough couple of months at the start of the year, but that's paid dividends and the last 5 have been pretty smooth.

She didn't get smarter. And if she didn't have parents with the time and ability to help her, she woulda flunked.

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#179

Post by Waterluvian »

fsckboy wrote: post #148
Waterluvian wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I really have no complaints. Of all “we feed you content” thingies online, YouTube has been the most adequate. The only complaint I have is what human behaviour forces even the intelligent creators to do: have a title card with an excited looking person.

this is how low we've sunk, you don't even say that youtube is adequate, you say it's the most adequate Just to add my anecdata to the mix, I'm waist deep in logging-in to gmail and workplace apps, etc, but to compensate have abandoned android for iPhone, and I never use google search, and while I watch plenty on youtube, it's never required me to log in so I've never logged in, I don't even have any idea how much it…

I very carefully picked “most adequate.” I definitely think it could be a lot better. It’s the least bad. It’s usually fine.

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#180

Post by lazycouchpotato »

chongli wrote: post #76
grensley wrote: post #63

I think YouTube will really struggle to figure out how to weigh lowest common denominator content that does well with personalized recommendation that satisfy some deeper intellectual curiosity. I'm already finding it's a kind of "work" to keep the geopolitical and economics content that makes me feel like YouTube is a positive for me on the front page over shorts and sports montages. Maybe my algorithms just in a ba…

I’m a very strict curator of my watch history. If I ever succumb to click bait and click on some video I immediately regret, I go into my watch history and delete the offending video. This puts an immediate stop to any recommendations of similar videos. I recommend it to everyone!

I do it slightly differently. My watch and search history have been paused for 3+ years, leaving the algorithm to only use my highly curated list of followed channels and Liked videos to recommend me videos from.

Even if I watch a meme video or two, it should have no impact on my recommendations.

If there's a random video that I want to revisit though, I only have my PC's browser history to rely on. Outta luck on mobile.

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