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Same experience here. I have to actively curate them by removing some one-off dumb videos from my watch history, but my YouTube recommendations are by far extre

Same experience here. I have to actively curate them by removing some one-off dumb videos from my watch history, but my YouTube recommendations are by far extremely high quality. Youtube is the only service I know of that has actually achieved working content recommendations for me. My Watch Later has hundreds of hours of content from things that I definitely want to watch but I'm either not yet in the mood for or too long to get to now. Seriously, youtube for all its flaws is an incredible human achievement on par with wikipedia.

_0ffh 6y ago
I don't use the "watch later" feature anymore. It's always a bit irritating when you want to catch up on the list only to find that a video has been removed in the mean time. So I switched to archiving using youtube-dl. Also nice to have a few backup videos in case of an internet outage.
- scrollaway 6y ago
  I rarely have that problem with watch later, but it does happen. When I want to ensure a video is available down the line, i send the url to the web archive; they have a special archiver for youtube videos.
  - wolco2 6y ago
    What's the link?
    - scrollaway 6y ago
      Just prefix any URL with this exactly: https://web.archive.org/save/ https://web.archive.org/save/ Example: https://web.archive.org/save/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUF4afxMpQk https://web.archive.org/save/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v... If it's already saved, it'll do a new snapshot, but I believe the archive is smart enough not to duplicate saved youtube videos.
      - wintermutestwin 6y ago
        I tried this and it keeps saying job failed.
        wolco2 6y ago
        Same issue. Love the concept of saving through a GET link.
        scrollaway 6y ago
        Looks like the Archive is having some trouble today, but it's also getting throttled because the link is getting clicked a lot. the /save/ link will redirect you to a saved snapshot of the page; it basically tells the archive "capture this page right now".
- jessriedel 6y ago
  This is conceivable to me, bit I've never had this happen. What sort of videos would be removed that you actually wanted to watch?
  - OJFord 6y ago
    People remove and re-upload (or not) their videos sometimes, so if you could even find it that'd be an annoying extra step.
  - nitrogen 6y ago
    Cody's Lab had a video about refining metal ores removed, as one example.
  - _0ffh 6y ago
    Apart from what has already been mentioned, stuff also gets copyright-struck. Sometimes for ridiculously minor infractions. Sometimes for no real infraction at all. Additionally, there are the vague and ever-changing terms of service. Also, people sometimes take stuff down themselves. Take the JRE, for a recent and rather prominent example.
    - beepboop43 6y ago
      Happens to me often. I don't think it even tells you what videos are gone. I know I've seen channels say they removed a video themselves because it didn't do well with views so they wanted to re-tweak it in the hope it lands better.
- beepboop43 6y ago
  Just curious, do you download them one at a time or do you have a "system" for handling them? I ask because this seems like a great idea. I've already written a script to read from a list and download and now I'm wondering if I don't just use use that instead of "watch later" going forward. Curious if you do anything beyond adding them one at a time I should consider before changing my approach.
  - scrollaway 6y ago
    FYI youtube-dl can download playlists. I heavily suspect you can even use --continue to download missing updated bits in a playlist you previously downloaded
    - beepboop43 6y ago
      Good point on the playlists, it hadn't dawned on me that 'watch later' is a playlist. Haven't tried continue, in the past I've created a 'downloaded.txt' file which gets updated as files download and then checked before it runs again so it doesn't try to re-download them.
      - scrollaway 6y ago
        Yeah you don't need that downloaded.txt, youtube-dl can do that all on its own with the right flags :)
JD557 6y ago
+1 for cleaning up the watch history. It's pretty nice that youtube let's you edit that and doesn't use a "full history" to train the recommendation algorithm. I try to be careful and always use private browsing when opening "suspicious" videos, but every now and then, one slips and taints my recommendation. OTOH, with a clean history, I barely subscribe to channels, since new videos usually end up in the recommendations, anyway.
- Konohamaru 6y ago
  How do you clean up your watch history?
  - scrollaway 6y ago
    Go to "History" in your sidebar: https://www.youtube.com/feed/history https://www.youtube.com/feed/history You can individually remove videos by clicking on Delete (at least on desktop). You can also pause your watch history (eg. for some guest browsing) or clear it entirely (if you want to start from scratch).
- herodoturtle 6y ago
  "OTOH" = On the other hand. For those that, like me, hadn't seen this one before ^_^
domador 6y ago
My big curation-related grief has to do with YouTube playlists (the ones you can create with the +Save button on YouTube.) The list of playlists can't be sorted in alphabetical order by playlist name. It seems to be ordered either by playlist creation date and/or by when I last added a video to the list (with most recent playlists first.) I'd say the playlist feature is next to useless to me, except that I keep using it, ever so masochistically. This is a recurring grief I have with Google products: poor UI and a seeming inability to receive and/or act upon feedback from power users.
- oldgregg 6y ago
  This is intentional. They want you to just follow their AI more than curate your own world. You live in their world.
billfruit 6y ago
Thing is YouTube has hardly any features to manage a playlist that big. I think it does not even allow to search within the playlist.
zionpi 6y ago
but many years later,some videos in watch later list have gone,it seems that no way to find them back.
nixass 6y ago
YouTube provides high quality for everyone, because it knows what your preference is. For poor dumbs the suggestion feed full of conspiracy videos is very extremely quality in their eyes too. The other thing is that we consider their videos - crap

_0ffh 6y ago

I don't use the "watch later" feature anymore. It's always a bit irritating when you want to catch up on the list only to find that a video has been removed in the mean time. So I switched to archiving using youtube-dl. Also nice to have a few backup videos in case of an internet outage.

scrollaway 6y ago
I rarely have that problem with watch later, but it does happen. When I want to ensure a video is available down the line, i send the url to the web archive; they have a special archiver for youtube videos.
- wolco2 6y ago
  What's the link?
  - scrollaway 6y ago
    Just prefix any URL with this exactly: https://web.archive.org/save/ https://web.archive.org/save/ Example: https://web.archive.org/save/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUF4afxMpQk https://web.archive.org/save/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v... If it's already saved, it'll do a new snapshot, but I believe the archive is smart enough not to duplicate saved youtube videos.
    - wintermutestwin 6y ago
      I tried this and it keeps saying job failed.
      - wolco2 6y ago
        Same issue. Love the concept of saving through a GET link.
      - scrollaway 6y ago
        Looks like the Archive is having some trouble today, but it's also getting throttled because the link is getting clicked a lot. the /save/ link will redirect you to a saved snapshot of the page; it basically tells the archive "capture this page right now".
jessriedel 6y ago
This is conceivable to me, bit I've never had this happen. What sort of videos would be removed that you actually wanted to watch?
- OJFord 6y ago
  People remove and re-upload (or not) their videos sometimes, so if you could even find it that'd be an annoying extra step.
- nitrogen 6y ago
  Cody's Lab had a video about refining metal ores removed, as one example.
- _0ffh 6y ago
  Apart from what has already been mentioned, stuff also gets copyright-struck. Sometimes for ridiculously minor infractions. Sometimes for no real infraction at all. Additionally, there are the vague and ever-changing terms of service. Also, people sometimes take stuff down themselves. Take the JRE, for a recent and rather prominent example.
  - beepboop43 6y ago
    Happens to me often. I don't think it even tells you what videos are gone. I know I've seen channels say they removed a video themselves because it didn't do well with views so they wanted to re-tweak it in the hope it lands better.
beepboop43 6y ago
Just curious, do you download them one at a time or do you have a "system" for handling them? I ask because this seems like a great idea. I've already written a script to read from a list and download and now I'm wondering if I don't just use use that instead of "watch later" going forward. Curious if you do anything beyond adding them one at a time I should consider before changing my approach.
- scrollaway 6y ago
  FYI youtube-dl can download playlists. I heavily suspect you can even use --continue to download missing updated bits in a playlist you previously downloaded
  - beepboop43 6y ago
    Good point on the playlists, it hadn't dawned on me that 'watch later' is a playlist. Haven't tried continue, in the past I've created a 'downloaded.txt' file which gets updated as files download and then checked before it runs again so it doesn't try to re-download them.
    - scrollaway 6y ago
      Yeah you don't need that downloaded.txt, youtube-dl can do that all on its own with the right flags :)

JD557 6y ago

+1 for cleaning up the watch history. It's pretty nice that youtube let's you edit that and doesn't use a "full history" to train the recommendation algorithm. I try to be careful and always use private browsing when opening "suspicious" videos, but every now and then, one slips and taints my recommendation. OTOH, with a clean history, I barely subscribe to channels, since new videos usually end up in the recommendations, anyway.

Konohamaru 6y ago
How do you clean up your watch history?
- scrollaway 6y ago
  Go to "History" in your sidebar: https://www.youtube.com/feed/history https://www.youtube.com/feed/history You can individually remove videos by clicking on Delete (at least on desktop). You can also pause your watch history (eg. for some guest browsing) or clear it entirely (if you want to start from scratch).
herodoturtle 6y ago
"OTOH" = On the other hand. For those that, like me, hadn't seen this one before ^_^

domador 6y ago

My big curation-related grief has to do with YouTube playlists (the ones you can create with the +Save button on YouTube.) The list of playlists can't be sorted in alphabetical order by playlist name. It seems to be ordered either by playlist creation date and/or by when I last added a video to the list (with most recent playlists first.) I'd say the playlist feature is next to useless to me, except that I keep using it, ever so masochistically. This is a recurring grief I have with Google products: poor UI and a seeming inability to receive and/or act upon feedback from power users.

oldgregg 6y ago
This is intentional. They want you to just follow their AI more than curate your own world. You live in their world.

billfruit 6y ago

Thing is YouTube has hardly any features to manage a playlist that big. I think it does not even allow to search within the playlist.

zionpi 6y ago

but many years later,some videos in watch later list have gone,it seems that no way to find them back.

nixass 6y ago

YouTube provides high quality for everyone, because it knows what your preference is. For poor dumbs the suggestion feed full of conspiracy videos is very extremely quality in their eyes too. The other thing is that we consider their videos - crap