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Making the dislike count private across YouTube

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Re: Making the dislike count private across YouTube

#531

Post by throwuxiytayq »

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…

I just canceled my premium subscription. I'm not taking this lightly, YT has been an important part of my life for as long as I can remember. But at this point it feels like the responsibile thing to do is to vote with my wallet. Not that a change in course is likely; their leadership has been hell bent on ruining the platform for years.

Re: Making the dislike count private across YouTube

#532

Post by gyosifov »

A little experiment: on a limited sample of random videos, it seems like around 1 of 30 people watching will use the like/dislike button. Seeing that a video with 3.6 mil views that has only 9.5k likes would give you a rough estimation of how many people disliked it. Is there a real study on the subject? It seems like it could be used as some sort of heuristic if there is nothing better.

Re: Making the dislike count private across YouTube

#533

Post by Spivak »

emkoemko wrote: post #336
summerlight wrote: post #263

As usual, HN users are making lots of interesting assumptions (some comments to a conspiracy level) on the intention here... But in the reality, there are many smaller creators who is frequently being harassed by trolls (have you heard about those young Chinese patriots trolling over Korean and Japanese channels?) and one of their tool is the dislike button. And creators have been complaining about this for many year…

this ain't the solution.... because some people where effected we need to disable a feature used by everyone ? now what? we have to waste time watching a video to find out that it teaches your bs? flat earth is now 5k likes, Earth is now flat guys.. no dissent

I can understand the frustration about being affected by a change that feels like "punishing the class" but sometimes there aren't really any better options. The problem is that the existence of a button that hurts the creator means that there is a natural incentive for people to weaponize it as such. Every forum has had to come up with a solution to brigading and review bombing are there are really only two answers -- identify and police downvote brigades and review bombs or eliminate downvotes altogether.

The forces that push a platform to the latter is there being a constant stream of outrage when platforms identify a brigade and delete their votes to avoid poising the the data. It's easier to just change the system to eliminate the problem entirely. This isn't really an isolated incident, even in the tech space people have been rallying for "removing comment sections" because they've been a cesspool since their inception. YouTube is one of the last platforms to make this change.

Re: Making the dislike count private across YouTube

#534

Post by t-writescode »

summerlight wrote: post #263

As usual, HN users are making lots of interesting assumptions (some comments to a conspiracy level) on the intention here... But in the reality, there are many smaller creators who is frequently being harassed by trolls (have you heard about those young Chinese patriots trolling over Korean and Japanese channels?) and one of their tool is the dislike button. And creators have been complaining about this for many year…

And Reddit handles this, in general, by giving vague ideas of vote counts and not showing the real number. Why can't YouTube do something similar?

Re: Making the dislike count private across YouTube

#535

Post by nitwit005 »

It seems like YouTube just shuts off any interaction whenever a problem crops up. The "fix" for issues with comments on children's videos was to disable all comments on the videos.

Which works, I suppose, but if you take it to it's logical conclusion we'll end up with there simply being no user interaction at all.

Re: Making the dislike count private across YouTube

#536

Post by Nition »

I went back to look at when they first changed from star ratings to like/dislike, and it seems like they were thinking about going even further and removing the dislike option entirely even back then.

They made some comments[1] before that change:

> Seems like when it comes to ratings it's pretty much all or nothing. Great videos prompt action; anything less prompts indifference. Thus, the ratings system is primarily being used as a seal of approval, not as an editorial indicator of what the community thinks about a video. Rating a video joins favoriting and sharing as a way to tell the world that this is something you love.

> We're glad there are so many awesome videos on YouTube, but all of this begs the question: if the majority of videos are getting five stars, how useful is this system really? Would a thumbs up/thumbs down be more effective, or does favoriting do the trick of declaring your love for a video?

[1]https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/five-stars-dominate-rat...

Re: Making the dislike count private across YouTube

#537

Post by bserge »

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…

Yes, good move to increase view count. If you don't have a like/dislike ratio to judge, you're more likely to play it and watch at least a bit. Everyone wins (at Google): more ads, more money.

Re: Making the dislike count private across YouTube

#540

Post by Spivak »

oleglustenko wrote: post #490

To show power of our Hacker News community and the power of union. I suggest to report the post at Google page. So click 3 dot button -> Report Abuse -> Submit Report. These small 3 steps can show the power of our will! Yes we can!

I like this. It perfectly illustrates how when you give the public a negative signal it will be turned into a weapon for angry people to hurl at you whether it makes any sense or not.
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