Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Making the dislike count private across YouTube

support.google.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 1001 posts

Re: Making the dislike count private across YouTube

#351

Post by throwawaycuriou »

kodah wrote: post #341

I'm curious how useful voting really is. The usefulness of it really depends on if voters are disciplined enough to remove their opinion voting and vote based on an established, high-level framework. The latter still includes some opinion, but at least more rigorous and less opinionated. I can see a couple outcomes from such a system: - downvotes are guideline violations - upvotes indicate relativity, not necessarily…

I'd like to glean valuable context from voting ratios. It used to be possible. But my confidence in voting is dashed. There's too much money and power involved. Gaming the system is something I feel is (rightly or wrongly?) too easy to do. Facebook's introduction of a like button was a turning point in what the Internet is used for.

Re: Making the dislike count private across YouTube

#352

Post by ncann »

vlunkr wrote: post #328

People are weirdly outraged here. Likes/Dislikes on really public platforms like reddit and youtube are just a game, they tell you nothing about the quality of something, only whether it matches the agreed upon view of the core audience. Barely anyone thinks about dislikes on youtube until there's a big event like youtube rewind.

You are wrong. Every now and then I need find and watch instruction video on how to do something, like how to install my old ancient printer on Windows 10, or how to disassemble my laptop, or how to flush my water heater. If I see a bad like/dislike ratio I can know right away the video is useless.

Re: Making the dislike count private across YouTube

#353

Post by vhold »

alex_c wrote: post #161

This change is very upsetting. Ever since becoming a parent, I've been baffled by a mystery. I noticed that - unlike most other popular content - children's videos on YouTube almost always have roughly a 2:1 like to dislike ratio no matter what channel or type of content. Why? Where do all the dislikes come from? Is it from kids mashing touch screens at random? Parents taking what small revenge they can at being subj…

My hunch is that it's because children tend to consume YouTube voraciously without much thought put into what video they select. I could scroll for a minute before I decide a video that feels worth spending my time on, I've seen kids select videos in less than half a second.

Re: Making the dislike count private across YouTube

#354

Post by jonas21 »

qwertox wrote: post #4

Hmm. For me the dislike button was informative. If feels like they are trying to create a world where everything can only be good, better, even more better, which just doesn't represent reality. Imagine Stack Overflow only having the option to upvote Questions and Answers. The ratio of likes vs dislikes of a TED talk does help me to decide if I should stop watching a video which just isn't getting better.

Imagine a News site for Hackers that only had the option to upvote stories. How horrible would that be?!

Re: Making the dislike count private across YouTube

#355

Post by alpaca128 »

kingcharles wrote: post #275
nickjj wrote: post #67

Bummer. I often use like vs dislike ratios as a gauge on whether a video is worth watching. If I see a 3,000 up / 48 down video on a topic I'm interested in there's a really good chance the video is great. I'm a small time creator (~13.5k subs) and don't care at all about upvotes or downvotes being public. There's only been a handful of videos out of hundreds that received more downvotes than expected because the vid…

That's an interesting point. Why can this feature not be video or channel specific so that a creator who is being targetted could switch off the count if they wanted?

That's already possible. Content creators can turn off comments and/or votes for any video.

Re: Making the dislike count private across YouTube

#356

Post by xg15 »

jonas21 wrote: post #354
qwertox wrote: post #4

Hmm. For me the dislike button was informative. If feels like they are trying to create a world where everything can only be good, better, even more better, which just doesn't represent reality. Imagine Stack Overflow only having the option to upvote Questions and Answers. The ratio of likes vs dislikes of a TED talk does help me to decide if I should stop watching a video which just isn't getting better.

Imagine a News site for Hackers that only had the option to upvote stories. How horrible would that be?!

To be fair, you can downvote comments here, which is often used effectively. Comments with a high dislike count are even specifically highlighted.

Re: Making the dislike count private across YouTube

#357

Post by curtis3389 »

jonas21 wrote: post #354
qwertox wrote: post #4

Hmm. For me the dislike button was informative. If feels like they are trying to create a world where everything can only be good, better, even more better, which just doesn't represent reality. Imagine Stack Overflow only having the option to upvote Questions and Answers. The ratio of likes vs dislikes of a TED talk does help me to decide if I should stop watching a video which just isn't getting better.

Imagine a News site for Hackers that only had the option to upvote stories. How horrible would that be?!

Hacker News has a downvote button, but you need enough karma to unlock it.

Re: Making the dislike count private across YouTube

#358

Post by pessimizer »

_qbjt wrote: post #101

[flagged]

These businesses were built from pseudonymous comments (and posts) and open, lightly moderated discussion. The question is whether what Youtube is doing will kill the golden goose, which has somehow easily weathered the owner-demeaning attacks from its disgusting users for its entire existence.

Re: Making the dislike count private across YouTube

#359

Post by badRNG »

jonas21 wrote: post #354
qwertox wrote: post #4

Hmm. For me the dislike button was informative. If feels like they are trying to create a world where everything can only be good, better, even more better, which just doesn't represent reality. Imagine Stack Overflow only having the option to upvote Questions and Answers. The ratio of likes vs dislikes of a TED talk does help me to decide if I should stop watching a video which just isn't getting better.

Imagine a News site for Hackers that only had the option to upvote stories. How horrible would that be?!

HN has a downvote button, but only for those who've engaged on HN for a bit prior to downvoting. It helps prevent abuse.

Re: Making the dislike count private across YouTube

#360

Post by quotemstr »

qwertox wrote: post #4

Hmm. For me the dislike button was informative. If feels like they are trying to create a world where everything can only be good, better, even more better, which just doesn't represent reality. Imagine Stack Overflow only having the option to upvote Questions and Answers. The ratio of likes vs dislikes of a TED talk does help me to decide if I should stop watching a video which just isn't getting better.

> If feels like they are trying to create a world where everything can only be good, better, even more better, which just doesn't represent reality.

It's part of a trend towards fake, cloying, passive-aggressive forced positivity across the whole industry. It's a California thing.

Time was, if you didn't like a bit of code, you could say so. Nowadays, you have to wrap criticism in right zillion levels of disingenuous praise before you can even start getting to the point -- and the you get fake "thank you for the excellent feedback!!!!1!!" typed with gritted teeth and fantasies of backstabbing later on.

I've always found the in-your-face New York style more genuine, more honest, more efficient, and ultimately, kinder and more respectful.

Post reply on HN