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Why do War Thunder players leak classified information? [video]

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Re: Why do War Thunder players leak classified information? [video]

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortunately people still make short videos Interesting. I don't see anything fortunate about that myself. I guess it's a "different strokes for different folks" thing. Personally, I rarely watch any video that's less than 20 minutes long. I think of short videos as being too small to contain enough useful info to be worth my time (although that's obviously not literally true for all short videos). And generally speak…

The problem with everyone making long videos is that it leads to a situation where, intentional or not, it seems like everyone is trying to waste your time. Some things just aren’t worth talking about for that long.

Pretty much this. A short video is a fairly strong indication that the author did his work and respects your time, while a long one is a fair indication of the opposite. I've come to recognize some red flags in longer videos, such as including unnecessary bloopers, reading very slowly, reading long and frequent definitions, going on tangents, and generally not synthesizing the information enough such that all the bits presented tie into the main topic.

I would lie if I said that I don't consume long form documentaries on Youtube. I do and there are some channels that I deeply enjoy. But for a while, especially since they removed the dislike button, I've become wary of discovering new channels. It's often hit or miss, and the overall time investment doesn't look justifiable in retrospect. For this exact reason, I've removed all my subscriptions, and disabled all recommendations. I mostly poll for channels that I remember had good content that was meaningful to me.

Re: Why do War Thunder players leak classified information? [video]

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed this too, it's becoming somewhat infamous that modern YouTube videos are all these 1+ hour long 'video essays' on topics which could easily be replaced with 2-3 page articles to be read in half the time. While back in the day a long video essay was usually borne out of necessity and thus information-dense and high-quality—not unlike a documentary, actually—it feels like length itself is an objective for…

An independent creator can easily get paid by making a long YouTube video. It is almost impossible to get paid by making long or short web articles. Inb4 "They shouldn't want to make money and just publish their articles for free" Inb4 "People should only be creative online as a side hobby when they are comfortably employed"

You can still make money writing blog or article if you have a sponsor. Just because you are on some platform it doesn't mean you will get free visitors. Its very competitive. You need to be among the top creators to be featured on YouTube et.al. Almost all creators have sponsors because you make so little money on the ads because the platform takes a crazy huge cut. The platforms are just middlemen rent seekers profitting on mindless zombies who are cunsuming content and just watch the next video in the recommendation flow.

Re: Why do War Thunder players leak classified information? [video]

#43
post #4

I'll provide some background for people that aren't familiar with the game. It's an online vehicular combat game where you pilot tanks, planes, helicopters and warships. The vehicles range from pre-WW2 to modern. The game aims for realistic vehicle specifications, like armour thickness, penetration values etc. For older, actually real vehicles, that information is more easily available. For modern, classified vehicle…

> The game aims for realistic vehicle specifications, like armour thickness, penetration values etc.

Yet the gameplay is very arcadey and not very realistic.

Re: Why do War Thunder players leak classified information? [video]

#44
post #3

I remember a time when crossing the 10 minute mark was really stretching it on YouTube. Nowadays most videos hit the 1 hour mark... I'm not sure if this is what the market demands, or this is just Google nudging creators in this direction. Fortunately people still make short videos, like this (relevant) one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0WWbpBxLCI

I'm guessing you're either missing or deliberately excluding the HUGE push by Youtube for "Youtube Shorts". Personally, I vastly prefer long (20+ minute) videos. However short videos are good for quick DIY / tutorials when I'm unable to find a written equivalent.

the huge push for youtube shorts is to compete with tiktok and instagram for that segment of the market. the longer form videos are a different segment of the market, they aren't entirely related

Re: Why do War Thunder players leak classified information? [video]

#45

Answer: they don't leak classified info, they leak restricted info that's effectively public domain. Because both sound bad, there's benefits to all involved to do a little bait and switch there. Notably, reputable publications don't play along. This sounds disagreeable, but it's the boring truth. Some sourcing: - "declassified information can still be considered “restricted,” and thus violates the game’s rules, [the…

Very true. The most recent "leak" was of a document that is available on archive.org and has been for years[1]. But the bottoms of the pages have "NATO RESTRICTED" printed, so it was declined, and news sites once again exploded with "War Thunder player leaks secret military documents on forum!!"

[1] https://archive.org/details/da-7-flight-manual-2003

Re: Why do War Thunder players leak classified information? [video]

#46
post #3

I remember a time when crossing the 10 minute mark was really stretching it on YouTube. Nowadays most videos hit the 1 hour mark... I'm not sure if this is what the market demands, or this is just Google nudging creators in this direction. Fortunately people still make short videos, like this (relevant) one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0WWbpBxLCI

Fortunately people still make short videos Interesting. I don't see anything fortunate about that myself. I guess it's a "different strokes for different folks" thing. Personally, I rarely watch any video that's less than 20 minutes long. I think of short videos as being too small to contain enough useful info to be worth my time (although that's obviously not literally true for all short videos). And generally speak…

A lot of long videos have very little informational content but they become long because their creator rambles, repeats himself, tells shitty repetitive jokes and wastes time with sarcasm and then clarifying those sarcastic remarks because otherwise some people won't get it, etc.

Drachinifel is a prime example of this. The channel "WWII US Bombers" is an example of the opposite, somebody creating information dense short videos because he has laser tight focus and no time for joking around. (Examples chosen for the conceptual proximity of their content, historic military ships and historic military aircraft.)

Re: Why do War Thunder players leak classified information? [video]

#48
post #16

It's this kind of leak that makes me 100% confident that there are no alien UFOs, there has been no alien contact, the US government wasn't behind the JFK assassination and so many other conspiracies. Why? Because people really can't keep secrets, particularly when they're not personally invested in them. Pretty much all conspiracy theories boil down to a lack of understanding about whatever the theory concerns. Some…

There's actually a mathematical model for this. See https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

Re: Why do War Thunder players leak classified information? [video]

#49
post #17
post #4

I'll provide some background for people that aren't familiar with the game. It's an online vehicular combat game where you pilot tanks, planes, helicopters and warships. The vehicles range from pre-WW2 to modern. The game aims for realistic vehicle specifications, like armour thickness, penetration values etc. For older, actually real vehicles, that information is more easily available. For modern, classified vehicle…

"Don't ask questions, post some blatantly wrong answers on the internet. You'll have angry PhDs running to explain how you are wrong!"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Cunningham#%22Cunningham'...

Re: Why do War Thunder players leak classified information? [video]

#50
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An independent creator can easily get paid by making a long YouTube video. It is almost impossible to get paid by making long or short web articles. Inb4 "They shouldn't want to make money and just publish their articles for free" Inb4 "People should only be creative online as a side hobby when they are comfortably employed"

You can still make money writing blog or article if you have a sponsor. Just because you are on some platform it doesn't mean you will get free visitors. Its very competitive. You need to be among the top creators to be featured on YouTube et.al. Almost all creators have sponsors because you make so little money on the ads because the platform takes a crazy huge cut. The platforms are just middlemen rent seekers prof…

You can. But it's much easier to be a YouTuber – and it's not only the top creators who get paid.

Which is easier of these choices:

Talking or writing?

Uploading to YouTube or publishing to a blog?

Building an audience of millions or already having them on the platform?

Considering that online creativity should be for everybody and not just hacker and academic types.

> The platforms are just middlemen rent seekers profitting on mindless zombies who are cunsuming content and just watch the next video in the recommendation flow.

Oh never mind, you are stuck in illusions. YouTube as of 2025 has the highest quality and biggest quantity visual media library in history. If you actually press the like and subscribe button on good videos a bunch of times, YouTube will start recommending videos of the highest quality possible. Going in-depth into any subject imaginable. Made by some of the world's most professional film crews. You're really missing out if you're deciding to be an angry hacker about this.

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