yay now you have to watch the whole video to tell if it’s a scam/troll/shitty tutorial, at least capeshit movie trailers won’t be downvoted anymore
comments are next to go
When Youtube took action on the Elsagate shit a while ago they disabled comments on all videos that were tagged as for kids. And generally that was a good move.
But as a side effect, pretty much any clip from any cartoon on Youtube also has comments disabled. Even cartoons that are decades old and not currently airing. And that really sucked because every once in a while I’d like to go and watch some of those for nostalgia and reading the comments was the best part.
Embrace hexbear thought :hexbear-retro:
no downvotes and a mod team committed to keeping a positive environment worked here.
You can’t just apply the same methods in one area without thinking about broader context
I personally think a rating system (like you see for products) would be better than likes and dislikes.
I think getting rid of dislikes might be good in comment sections where users interact with each other directly. Youtube has basically already done that, though. The comments have a dislike button, but it’s well known at this point that it doesn’t actually do anything and is just there for placebo purposes.
But getting rid of the dislike count on videos is I think a very bad move. In general, it doesn’t tell you much about most videos, especially political videos. But for quickly identifying scams and clickbait? I believe that’s basically its main purpose and that is invaluable. If an informational video on a non-political subject has many more dislikes than likes, you can be sure it’s bullshit without even watching it.
