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YouTube’s ‘dislike’ barely works according to new study on recommendations

engadget.com

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Re: YouTube’s ‘dislike’ barely works according to new study on recommendations

#11

Post by hombre_fatal »

beart wrote: post #6
HardwareLust wrote: post #5

YouTube doesn't seem to understand my preferences, at all. It's far, far too biased toward what you recently watched. It basically doesn't work and certainly doesn't "learn" anything.

I feel like every recommendation service works this way - YouTube, Amazon, Spotify, etc. Whatever the last thing you looked at becomes your entire life's mission according to these systems. When I think about all the buzz words around machine learning, ai, and so on, it's completely incompatible with the reality I see. What exactly are all these engineering teams doing just to end up with this result? Amazon might be…

Youtube does have a great escape latch though: go to the History tab and delete your viewing history. Your recommendations start from scratch and you’ll get funneled into a potentially new corner of videos.

With that in mind, I think Youtube recommendations are quite good. Just do it when your recommendations get stale, monthly or so.

I wish other platforms had that like Amazon.

Re: YouTube’s ‘dislike’ barely works according to new study on recommendations

#12

Post by duxup »

HardwareLust wrote: post #5

YouTube doesn't seem to understand my preferences, at all. It's far, far too biased toward what you recently watched. It basically doesn't work and certainly doesn't "learn" anything.

Most preferences type systems don't seem to get the nuances involved.

I just watched a pleasant video about a particular video game.

Youtube now wants me to watch the most obnoxious youtuber they can find who also covers that video game.

No, actually the reason I watched that other video was because the person in it was nice and pleasant.... the recommendation is the LAST thing I wanted.

Re: YouTube’s ‘dislike’ barely works according to new study on recommendations

#13

Post by hombre_fatal »

eimrine wrote: post #4
PaulHoule wrote: post #3

It’s been a while since I’ve logged into YouTube but my impression is that the experience including recommendations is worse if you are logged in.

Best YT experience is to clear cookies then open a lot of YT links from HN, but when our human nature drives us watching a stupid video or two from YT recommendation then after that session do clearing cookies and open YT links from HN again.

You can delete individual videos from your watch history in the history tab to remove them from recommendation basis. Unlike the “Don’t show me videos like this” button, it works well.

Re: YouTube’s ‘dislike’ barely works according to new study on recommendations

#14

Post by dr-detroit »

HardwareLust wrote: post #5

YouTube doesn't seem to understand my preferences, at all. It's far, far too biased toward what you recently watched. It basically doesn't work and certainly doesn't "learn" anything.

No post body was provided.

Re: YouTube’s ‘dislike’ barely works according to new study on recommendations

#15

Post by notart666 »

HardwareLust wrote: post #5

YouTube doesn't seem to understand my preferences, at all. It's far, far too biased toward what you recently watched. It basically doesn't work and certainly doesn't "learn" anything.

Well at least it doesn't work like Instagrams where it doesn't do anything at all. I don't want to see hundreds of videos making videos of street vendors all doing the exact same thing.

Re: YouTube’s ‘dislike’ barely works according to new study on recommendations

#16

Post by joe_guy »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #11
beart wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like every recommendation service works this way - YouTube, Amazon, Spotify, etc. Whatever the last thing you looked at becomes your entire life's mission according to these systems. When I think about all the buzz words around machine learning, ai, and so on, it's completely incompatible with the reality I see. What exactly are all these engineering teams doing just to end up with this result? Amazon might be…

Youtube does have a great escape latch though: go to the History tab and delete your viewing history. Your recommendations start from scratch and you’ll get funneled into a potentially new corner of videos. With that in mind, I think Youtube recommendations are quite good. Just do it when your recommendations get stale, monthly or so. I wish other platforms had that like Amazon.

Amazon actually has a pretty detailed page that lets you control what feeds back into your recommendations.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/yourstore/iyr/

Re: YouTube’s ‘dislike’ barely works according to new study on recommendations

#17

Post by sph »

HardwareLust wrote: post #5

YouTube doesn't seem to understand my preferences, at all. It's far, far too biased toward what you recently watched. It basically doesn't work and certainly doesn't "learn" anything.

YouTube absolutely IGNORES your preferences.

I watch it daily, I have never listened to any hip hop, I don't watch sports nor trending topics, yet every single day it suggests football videos, MMA, the latest hiphop hit, and celebrity crap (imagine the Kardashians) among my other interests.

I click "don't recommend this channel", or "I don't like this video " every single day, I have an extension to make this convenient so I train it dozens of times a day yet it doesn't bloody care.

I pay for Premium because I watch it on my iPad and smart TV, but I'm planning on telling Apple to fuck off, buy Android everything and sideload a system wide adblocker so I can stop paying for that terrible service.

This is the inconvenience it forces upon a paying customer. What an abusive relationship.

Re: YouTube’s ‘dislike’ barely works according to new study on recommendations

#18

Post by dr-detroit »

HeckFeck wrote: post #8
PaulHoule wrote: post #3

It’s been a while since I’ve logged into YouTube but my impression is that the experience including recommendations is worse if you are logged in.

Just don't try the YouTube search and scroll down by more than six results, it will make you scream inside.

No post body was provided.

Re: YouTube’s ‘dislike’ barely works according to new study on recommendations

#19

Post by amatecha »

This reminds me of how games (coughLeagueOfLegendscough) match me up with a player that I literally just reported for harassment, griefing etc. in the previous match. Like, there weren't any other possible players to match me with out of the many thousands? I don't mind waiting a few more seconds to match up with someone else!

I'm getting a lot of responses as if I expect the player to be totally blocked from matching with me, but that's not really what I mean. Even a basic "temporary match score reduction" would work. I would also expect a cooldown system where the reduction caused by reporting no longer applies. Arguing against the idea "because it creates a prisoner's island" misses the subtlety of a well-thought-out implementation where reporting simply lowers the matchup "rank" for a while, and serial-false-reporters have their reports basically nullified/ignored.

Re: YouTube’s ‘dislike’ barely works according to new study on recommendations

#20

Post by amatecha »

HardwareLust wrote: post #5

YouTube doesn't seem to understand my preferences, at all. It's far, far too biased toward what you recently watched. It basically doesn't work and certainly doesn't "learn" anything.

Yeah, on a non-logged-in system I watch YT on, I watched exactly ONE gaming-related video, and now suddenly the "home" view is full of Minecraft, Roblox, whatever FPS shooters, etc... Like... I'm not suddenly absolutely obsessed with a topic because I viewed one video, guys...
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