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Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count

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Re: Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count

#331
post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess Tron wasn’t clear enough, it should have been “fight for the end user.”

That's still the advertiser, isn't it?

The phrase is defined as “a person who ultimately uses or is intended to ultimately use a product.” When YouTube was created, it was intended to show videos to users. There were no ads yet. So the intention is for the viewers to be the users.

Re: Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count

#333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a site tracking these, some of the stats on older videos with high views are crazy (down the page): https://81m.org

Woah - that is surprising. I wonder what the cause of the dislikes is on these videos? Is it targeted or just no overlap from Biden supporters and YouTube? Or they're not happy with Biden. Very telling that YouTube are moving to remove the dislikes though..

[deleted]

Re: Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count

#334
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could not repair half the things I have learned to repair without Youtube. 100% worth having to look out for manipulative antifeatures, in my book.

What sort of stuff, and what alternatives have you tried? If it's a vehicle, the Chilton's or Haynes (I'm sure there's a difference but I sure couldn't tell) manuals will cover just about anything you'd want to do. If it's a piece of consumer electronics, iFixit usually has good teardown and repair guides (in the "annotated images and text" style) that cover a lot, though for some brands you can actually find factory…

snort a few videos blow Chilton's out of the water any day. Chilton's is often filled with inaccurate photos (approximating the model year you're interested in), have wonky angles that take some deciphering to figure out, my Chiltons were all B&W photos (maybe that's changed?) or line drawings, and the instructions can be pretty vague. A video is often literally looking over a mechanic's shoulder as he does the procedure and offers tips along the way. Cross reference these instructions with a few other videos, some forum posts, and you'll be in a much better spot than with Chiltons.

Source: decades of working on my vehicles with Chiltons manuals.

Re: Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count

#335

How else is the mainstream supposed to spin reality? Entertainment giants used to more easily create the illusion of consensus, but web platforms like YouTube completely mess with their power by showing downvotes.

But that's the point! Yours and others' belief that down voting is a mean to register dissent. Since dissent is orthogonal to quality down votes no longer indicate lack of quality. Thus the metric becomes meaningless. In fact, if Google and other tech companies were to continue using down votes to measure quality, the end result would be strengthening the majority's echo chamber. Suppose there is a YouTube channel ab…

> Suppose there is a YouTube channel about how a minority in a certain country is discriminated against. Given what we know about discrimination, it is very unlikely for the majority to believe that it is discriminating this minority. Thus you have dissent and the possibility of hordes of angry down voters "brigading" that channel. These brigades may even be organized or supported by country in question because it doesn't like the negative views the channel is conveying.

This is not how things are in my country (US). People make and post those videos pretty frequently. They get high up-to-down ratios, just like the videos expressing skepticism. Videos that seem to be downvoted the most seem to be ones with extremely "bad takes." For example, when one of the SpaceX Starship test vehicles exploded on landing, some cable news channel described it as some sort of embarrassing failure, when the thing was very clearly an unexpected success. That got a pretty serious number of downvotes. Of the remainder of downvoted videos, the only ones that seem to be consistently brigaded by users are ones where a creator dares to express an unpopular opinion with his audience, or the ones that are just pure corporate shilling and/or propaganda. The former are extremely courageous; the latter deserve to be downvoted to hell.

The YouTube algorithm being what it is, YouTube is already showing you videos that it thinks you want to see and will engage with. Brigading is thus pretty rare on the platform.

Re: Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count

#336

Am I the only one that smells April Fools because the whole VW thing seemed so legit just the other day? No... just me? K...

Removing downvotes seems a lot more legit than Volkwagon dumping decades of brand goodwill on a whim. Partly because a lot of us think of YouTube/Google as censorious/evil to begin with. But maybe they are trolling. 'Tis the season, and pranking people by playing on their pre-existing biases is the correct pattern.

Re: Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count

#337
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your first mistake was thinking that you are the user they care about serving :p

Oh I know, I am pretty cynical and not exactly outraged here. But although they don't care about what's good for us, they do care about what will keep us on the platform. And if it gets harder to find good stuff and filter out the dross, that could conceivably have negative consequences for YouTube in the long run.

> they do care about what will keep us on the platform

Yes they do. Watching 2 useless DIY videos and then a 3rd DIY video that finally helped you out, just kept you on the platform 3x longer than if you had filtered out the badly rated one and watched the helpful video first.

Checkmate. YouTube/Google/Alphabet Wins! 3x the ads. 3x the money. 3x the evil. Do not pass go, Google collects your $200. Time to hide the dislike counts... case closed.

Re: Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count

#338
post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh I know, I am pretty cynical and not exactly outraged here. But although they don't care about what's good for us, they do care about what will keep us on the platform. And if it gets harder to find good stuff and filter out the dross, that could conceivably have negative consequences for YouTube in the long run.

A while back they significantly increased the number of ads and also now show YouTube premium popups constantly. I would imagine it's had very little if any negative impact. Google knows YouTube is the only game in town.

Yeah you seriously have to decline YouTube premium popup basically every session. So its not surprising to get that thing multiple times a day.

Re: Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count

#339
post #336

Am I the only one that smells April Fools because the whole VW thing seemed so legit just the other day? No... just me? K...

Removing downvotes seems a lot more legit than Volkwagon dumping decades of brand goodwill on a whim. Partly because a lot of us think of YouTube/Google as censorious/evil to begin with. But maybe they are trolling. 'Tis the season, and pranking people by playing on their pre-existing biases is the correct pattern.

Must be their first rodeo for a lot of other folks from what I can tell. Ain't my first. You can't trust shit coming up. The more, "controversial" the more, "it was just a prank bro". Happens every year.

Re: Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count

#340

Am I the only one that smells April Fools because the whole VW thing seemed so legit just the other day? No... just me? K...

That hadn't occurred to me and I initially felt foolish upon seeing your comment. But then I thought "What a brilliant way to test public reaction to tentative plans. If they love it, do it. If they hate it, go just kidding."
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