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I created an alternative to the YouTube algorithm to stop me wasting time

towardsdatascience.com

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Re: I created an alternative to the YouTube algorithm to stop me wasting time

#121

Post by bryanrasmussen »

bigfoot675 wrote: post #110
selestify wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sure the YT algorithms are optimized just fine for whatever revenue metrics they’re maximizing. You and I might just be part of the edge cases that they haven’t bothered improving their models on just yet

This is such an insightful comment. I find myself falling into the trap of complaining about things that are "broken" all the time too, but you're right: if you're on HN then you're not the customer that most companies are targeting.

unless one can prove that there is something special about being on HN that makes a person intrinsically different than other consumers I don't think this is a reasonable conclusion. It may be that this can be proven but I would like to see the proof.

If someone posts on a crafting forum, complains about youtube being broken is the conclusion that they are not the customer that most companies are targeting?

or any number of other fora, I doubt the predictor of a single interest is enough to differentiate the person so significantly.

Re: I created an alternative to the YouTube algorithm to stop me wasting time

#122

Post by bryanrasmussen »

speedgoose wrote: post #114
_boffin_ wrote: post #77

This is a great start, but there's a huge portion of data you're just flat out missing from this--comments. There's so much useful information inside user comments. I have a theory that I'm truthfully too lazy to test out, but I'm presuming that lower quality videos are going to have an average comment text complixicity number lower than the higher quality videos, especially as your topic gets more specific/technical…

Unfortunately comments are known to be important for ranking. I see more and more Youtubers asking their audience to write comments. The carwow channel for example is definitely asking to answer stupid debates in the comments to improve its ranking. The vilebrequin channel does the same but as a joke and explain that it's to improve the ranking. The community then write a lot of long and stupid comments to improve th…

writing a comment, and doing likes, both improve the ranking.

Writing long complex comments that are still readable would be a lot harder to ask of your audience, you would have to inspire it. Therefore something like this is maybe better for the ranking https://medium.com/glose-team/how-to-evaluate-text-readabili...

on edit: changed wrong comments to ranking

Re: I created an alternative to the YouTube algorithm to stop me wasting time

#123

Post by jmnicolas »

labster wrote: post #45
jmnicolas wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't bother: I tried literally for years to teach the algorithm that I don't eat fish but it stills offer fish cooking videos to this day.

Wouldn’t it just be easier to start eating fish?

I'd rather skip a meal than eat fish. In fact the last time I ate fish was 22 years ago during my compulsory military service which I still have nightmares of (but not because of the fish).

So I'll resist the algorithm until the end! ;)

Re: I created an alternative to the YouTube algorithm to stop me wasting time

#124

Post by dancek »

powerapple wrote: post #101
PopeDotNinja wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I could explicitly tell YouTube “don’t ever recommend videos I’ve seen.”

Don't ever recommend videos from 9 years ago please. This is the part I don't understand, how is Google doing so bad at this. You get slightly better experience if you use Chrome. It (on purposely?) keeps asking you to click 3 buttons to play a video Edge, and won't even show comments.

Our tastes are so different. I'd much rather watch a great video from 2005 than a good one from 2020. I'm irritated by the recommendation algorithms pushing new content. Why would I care whether the video was published last night or last year?

Re: I created an alternative to the YouTube algorithm to stop me wasting time

#125

Post by kortilla »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #121
bigfoot675 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such an insightful comment. I find myself falling into the trap of complaining about things that are "broken" all the time too, but you're right: if you're on HN then you're not the customer that most companies are targeting.

unless one can prove that there is something special about being on HN that makes a person intrinsically different than other consumers I don't think this is a reasonable conclusion. It may be that this can be proven but I would like to see the proof. If someone posts on a crafting forum, complains about youtube being broken is the conclusion that they are not the customer that most companies are targeting? or any nu…

Yes, just posting on a forum alone puts you in the tiny minority of consumers. There are huge swaths of people that barely like to read content, let alone write.

Look at how many youtube videos dominate search results with hundreds of thousands of views for “how to” X when X is trivially described in a few lines of text.

Re: I created an alternative to the YouTube algorithm to stop me wasting time

#126

Post by robotresearcher »

bra-ket wrote: post #83
smoe wrote: post #34

Really cool project, going to play around with it, since I wanted to experiment with alternative algorithms for these kind of platforms for a while, but didn't found time to get started. My biggest gripe with YouTube recommendations, or any service of that kind (Spotify, Amazon, etc.), is that they don't understand what aspects of the content I value. So it is a huge hit and miss. Sometimes it works, because I guess…

agreed, it's strange that with all their legions of machine learning PhDs Youtube recommendations still suck. The worst part is when it gets stuck on particular video/topic and just keeps recommending the same thing for months.

Their recommendations are not designed to make you happy, but to optimize their business. They are driving you to ads, not joy.

The ML PhDs could be working just fine. You won’t know.

Re: I created an alternative to the YouTube algorithm to stop me wasting time

#127

Post by Tor3 »

pantelisk wrote: post #25

The youtube algorithm is working extremely well, to the point where I find hard to believe it does not have any human in the loop or active moderation. I have discovered so many interesting types of music and documentaries and subculture/subgenres on it. It manages to hit my interests so well, that I rarely go to netflix nor spotify anymore for discovery. I 'll either directly go watch something that I 've chosen on…

So, I went to youtube.com right now to check what my recommendations are. Lately I've been watching a few videos about music theory, and some old jazz stuff. And now YT recommends pages and pages of music theory.. hundreds of videos. All the recommendations (useful ones) I saw in the past, about history, old computers, natural sciences.. all gone. I would prefer a slightly more balanced approach from their algorithms.

Re: I created an alternative to the YouTube algorithm to stop me wasting time

#128

Post by ment4list »

oriettaxx wrote: post #107

very good! I guess there is no way to have the same result without the need of the API key (I do my best to stay away from google)

You could perhaps use Invidious's API?

Invidious is "an alternative front-end to YouTube" which can be self-hosted or you can use one of the popular hosted instances.

https://github.com/iv-org/invidious/ https://github.com/iv-org/invidious/wiki/API

Re: I created an alternative to the YouTube algorithm to stop me wasting time

#129

Post by ianbooker »

gibolt wrote: post #94
PopeDotNinja wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I could explicitly tell YouTube “don’t ever recommend videos I’ve seen.”

They have two options under the triple dot menu (at least on Android feed) that you are not interested in this video or this channel. May help curate once you start getting those recommendations.

Then you cut out videos you were interested in the first place.

Re: I created an alternative to the YouTube algorithm to stop me wasting time

#130

Post by atoav »

dancek wrote: post #124
powerapple wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't ever recommend videos from 9 years ago please. This is the part I don't understand, how is Google doing so bad at this. You get slightly better experience if you use Chrome. It (on purposely?) keeps asking you to click 3 buttons to play a video Edge, and won't even show comments.

Our tastes are so different. I'd much rather watch a great video from 2005 than a good one from 2020. I'm irritated by the recommendation algorithms pushing new content. Why would I care whether the video was published last night or last year?

If e.g. you want political thinking in current events than you'd probably value recent videos more.

If you wanna see a great video on some obscure implementation detail of some electronics gear from the soviet era it doesn't really matter if it was uploaded a year ago or 8 years ago.

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