5 ms·

Well, you say that, but isn't that exactly why Netflix got rid of ratings? All the documentaries were getting really high ratings, so would display highly in s

Well, you say that, but isn't that exactly why Netflix got rid of ratings? All the documentaries were getting really high ratings, so would display highly in searches, but not many people actually watched them. It's the same for most content, I read a huge amount. I do read some intellectual books, but only occasionally. The rest of the time I read utter, thoroughly entertaining, trash. I don't want to read about an existential crisis after programming all day, I want someone to hit something with a big sword and get the girl.

bluGill 5y ago
> It's the same for most content, I read a huge amount. I do read some intellectual books, but only occasionally. The rest of the time I read utter, thoroughly entertaining, trash. I feel the same way. However I force myself to read things that will better me once in a while anyway. I too want to hit things with a big sword (without the pain of getting hit), and get the girl (without cheating on my wife), but the world including me is better if I do something else anyway. Which is why I do sometimes read a complex math book.
q-big 5y ago
> Well, you say that, but isn't that exactly why Netflix got rid of ratings? > All the documentaries were getting really high ratings, so would display highly in searches, but not many people actually watched them. This rather shows that ratings do work, but are used wrongly for giving recommendations: If you want to create suggestions for a user, in many case the wrong answer is "suggest what has really high ratings", but rather "given the ratings that this user gave and the films that he watched, what will he also like." The fact that these documentaries get high ratings (the same might hold for art house films) shows that there is some (niche?) audience which really loves this kind of films, but not that "John Doe" will love it, too.
- sempron64 5y ago
  Predicting exactly this was the premise of the famous Netflix Prize, one of the first open machine learning challenges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netflix_Prize https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netflix_Prize
  - tehjoker 5y ago
    I remember my professor talking about the ensemble approach the competitors were taking in a data mining class I took. I was saddened when Netflix ended up not using it because it was too slow and expensive or something.
    - jandrese 5y ago
      It didn't promote Netflix content above third party content. Not enough control for the algorithm is unacceptable for the marketing guys.
      - tehjoker 5y ago
        Thanks! I'd totally forgotten the real reason.
  - dmoy 5y ago
    I remember when that competition was released, I was working (as an undergrad) in GroupLens, which had MovieLens still around but it was getting a bit of bitrot. It was always weird to me that GroupLens didn't spin up a team for it, but it seemed like everyone in the research group had moved on to other things and didn't want to context switch back. Someone mentioned something like "shame they didn't do this 10 years ago, a million dollars would have been nice". I think someone was doing tagging on movielens, but I don't remember the details. I got the sense that neither Riedl nor Konstan (or any of the current grad students it seemed) wanted to pursue it (Terveen, I think, wasn't in to recommender systems at all in the first place). I don't think the lab had any funding problems haha, so maybe that was what it came down to.
- monkpit 5y ago
  Isn’t this why it now says something like “your match: n%” now?
- FalconSensei 5y ago
  > This rather shows that ratings do work, but are used wrongly for giving recommendations And I know I'm (possibly) a minority on hacker news, but I prefer the new system. I was giving everything I wanted to watch more 4 or 5, even when it was clearly not the case, but because I want recommendations of things I'm going to like AND actually watch
tehjoker 5y ago
That is how it is with documentaries. Just because they are getting lower viewing numbers doesn't mean you shouldn't keep promoting them. Certainly there should be a mix of entertainment and public interest stuff, but following audience preferences for entertainment creates a feedback loop that damages society.
- eru 5y ago
  Things like documentaries are mostly watched by already well-off people (mostly middle class and up). In Germany, public TV is paid for by (nearly?) every household. [0] Forcing everyone, including poor people, to subsidize rich people's taste for documentaries seems a bit.. off? Similar arguments apply to public libraries and opera houses, though at least there the financing is done mostly via progressive taxation. Of course, you can argue that we sophisticated people know what's good for those unwashed masses, and if only they watched their documentaries like they are supposed to, they would soon see the light. Colour me skeptical. [0] As far as I am concerned, private broadcasters can and should do what they feel like.
  - nitrogen 5y ago
    Well, when people complain about a growing wealth divide, and those who are doing okay financially say that childhood access to public libraries and documentaries made them who they are, shouldn't those things receive funding?
    - eru 5y ago
      That's a bit like asking healthy people. You'll get answers ranging from things like exercise to homeopathy. Answers from people can be used to suggest avenues for investigation, but shouldn't make you fund expensive stuff outright. (Assuming here that homeopathy is obvious nonsense, that people still swear by.) And, of course, public libraries and documentaries don't have to just produce good effects. In order to justify public funding, you'd need to do a whole cost-benefit analysis and look at opportunity costs. So look at what you get from public libraries vs libraries financed from private charity _plus_ whatever other good things the public money saved could do (including just outright giving it to poor people). I deliberately picked public libraries here as a provocative examples. I suspect they might actually pass the cost-benefit test without too much contortion of metrics and data. I am much less sanguine about the bang-for-buck of publicly financed opera houses, theatres and symphony orchestras, which Germany is quite fond of. And of course, publicly financed radio and TV broadcasters.

bluGill 5y ago

> It's the same for most content, I read a huge amount. I do read some intellectual books, but only occasionally. The rest of the time I read utter, thoroughly entertaining, trash. I feel the same way. However I force myself to read things that will better me once in a while anyway. I too want to hit things with a big sword (without the pain of getting hit), and get the girl (without cheating on my wife), but the world including me is better if I do something else anyway. Which is why I do sometimes read a complex math book.

q-big 5y ago

> Well, you say that, but isn't that exactly why Netflix got rid of ratings? > All the documentaries were getting really high ratings, so would display highly in searches, but not many people actually watched them. This rather shows that ratings do work, but are used wrongly for giving recommendations: If you want to create suggestions for a user, in many case the wrong answer is "suggest what has really high ratings", but rather "given the ratings that this user gave and the films that he watched, what will he also like." The fact that these documentaries get high ratings (the same might hold for art house films) shows that there is some (niche?) audience which really loves this kind of films, but not that "John Doe" will love it, too.

sempron64 5y ago
Predicting exactly this was the premise of the famous Netflix Prize, one of the first open machine learning challenges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netflix_Prize https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netflix_Prize
- tehjoker 5y ago
  I remember my professor talking about the ensemble approach the competitors were taking in a data mining class I took. I was saddened when Netflix ended up not using it because it was too slow and expensive or something.
  - jandrese 5y ago
    It didn't promote Netflix content above third party content. Not enough control for the algorithm is unacceptable for the marketing guys.
    - tehjoker 5y ago
      Thanks! I'd totally forgotten the real reason.
- dmoy 5y ago
  I remember when that competition was released, I was working (as an undergrad) in GroupLens, which had MovieLens still around but it was getting a bit of bitrot. It was always weird to me that GroupLens didn't spin up a team for it, but it seemed like everyone in the research group had moved on to other things and didn't want to context switch back. Someone mentioned something like "shame they didn't do this 10 years ago, a million dollars would have been nice". I think someone was doing tagging on movielens, but I don't remember the details. I got the sense that neither Riedl nor Konstan (or any of the current grad students it seemed) wanted to pursue it (Terveen, I think, wasn't in to recommender systems at all in the first place). I don't think the lab had any funding problems haha, so maybe that was what it came down to.
monkpit 5y ago
Isn’t this why it now says something like “your match: n%” now?
FalconSensei 5y ago
> This rather shows that ratings do work, but are used wrongly for giving recommendations And I know I'm (possibly) a minority on hacker news, but I prefer the new system. I was giving everything I wanted to watch more 4 or 5, even when it was clearly not the case, but because I want recommendations of things I'm going to like AND actually watch

tehjoker 5y ago

That is how it is with documentaries. Just because they are getting lower viewing numbers doesn't mean you shouldn't keep promoting them. Certainly there should be a mix of entertainment and public interest stuff, but following audience preferences for entertainment creates a feedback loop that damages society.

eru 5y ago
Things like documentaries are mostly watched by already well-off people (mostly middle class and up). In Germany, public TV is paid for by (nearly?) every household. [0] Forcing everyone, including poor people, to subsidize rich people's taste for documentaries seems a bit.. off? Similar arguments apply to public libraries and opera houses, though at least there the financing is done mostly via progressive taxation. Of course, you can argue that we sophisticated people know what's good for those unwashed masses, and if only they watched their documentaries like they are supposed to, they would soon see the light. Colour me skeptical. [0] As far as I am concerned, private broadcasters can and should do what they feel like.
- nitrogen 5y ago
  Well, when people complain about a growing wealth divide, and those who are doing okay financially say that childhood access to public libraries and documentaries made them who they are, shouldn't those things receive funding?
  - eru 5y ago
    That's a bit like asking healthy people. You'll get answers ranging from things like exercise to homeopathy. Answers from people can be used to suggest avenues for investigation, but shouldn't make you fund expensive stuff outright. (Assuming here that homeopathy is obvious nonsense, that people still swear by.) And, of course, public libraries and documentaries don't have to just produce good effects. In order to justify public funding, you'd need to do a whole cost-benefit analysis and look at opportunity costs. So look at what you get from public libraries vs libraries financed from private charity _plus_ whatever other good things the public money saved could do (including just outright giving it to poor people). I deliberately picked public libraries here as a provocative examples. I suspect they might actually pass the cost-benefit test without too much contortion of metrics and data. I am much less sanguine about the bang-for-buck of publicly financed opera houses, theatres and symphony orchestras, which Germany is quite fond of. And of course, publicly financed radio and TV broadcasters.