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

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

#31

This reminds me of how games ( cough LeagueOfLegends cough ) 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 mat…

Dota 2 added a (paid) “avoid player” option, where the matchmaker will not match them with you no matter what. It's definitely possible.

https://win.gg/news/dota-2-avoid-player-feature-improved-as-...

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

#32
The trick to improving YouTube recommendations is to regularly prune uninteresting videos and channels. Eventually this should start surfacing videos you're more likely to find interesting.

I've actually hit the end of my recommendation stream on the mobile app after marking dozens of videos with Not Interested. Once this happens it starts recommending videos you've already watched or older videos from creators you've been watching lately.

Personally, I'd love it if you could curate the recommendation system a bit more. I'm never interested in rewatching stuff I've already seen. And the recency bias for recommendations means you're always getting more if what you've recently consumed. I'd like it if more older interests were mixed in. Finally, I'd love to be able to blacklist certain topics and games entirely.

There's so much missed potential with YouTube recommendations.

Some might say that you can still use search, but that has been crippled to include unrelated recommendations after one page of results. Not only that, I want YouTube to help me discover new content. When the recommendation system works and it shows me new kinds of interesting stuff, it's superb. TikTok is eating YouTube's lunch in this regard.

Edit: forgot to mention this. On mobile if you do a recommendation refresh it'll show a New to You filter which you can use to explore more diverse recommendations. I don't know why it's hidden in this manner.

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

#33
post #29

I'm not surprised by this. I gave up on the YouTube Home page, etc. years ago and I only look at the Subscriptions page. I've just found new channels to subscribe to through word of mouth over the years and I have more than enough content to choose from.

Which is actually quite a good way to find youtube channels! I find them through twitter, 4ch, and friends.

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

#34

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.

this is my experience too, as well not showing videos from people you've subscribed too but maybe haven't watched in a while.

the most shocking thing is they still have not managed to get a decent recommendation engine after all this time.

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

#35
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.

It'd be great if I didn't use my History to actually find videos I've previously watched...

I don't understand why recommendation engines just don't provide a reset button. It'd be better for everyone involved: content provider, content creators, users, ad buyers.

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

#36
post #17

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 conveni…

[deleted]

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

#37
post #24

This reminds me of how games ( cough LeagueOfLegends cough ) 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 mat…

Did you Block or just report?

It shouldn't matter.

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

#39
post #17

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 conveni…

Somewhere in the middle for me, but what it recommends to me are generally channels I am already interested in. I think the only novel recommendation I've seen recently, that I enjoyed, was of some kind of classical Chinese music. Otherwise, I see a lot of absolute fucking garbage from the likes of Mr. Beast.

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

#40
The zeitgeist of our culture; of course you didn’t MEAN to be negative, here try again.

No, no; I most certainly did mean to suggest you should stop showing me this persons channel. Not because I hate the person but because I don’t want a shit “AI” that’s feeding me what Google makes the best margins on.

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