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I mostly agree with you, with the caveat of brigading being a very real thing that lowers the information value. But then why show upvotes either because positi

I mostly agree with you, with the caveat of brigading being a very real thing that lowers the information value. But then why show upvotes either because positive brigading is just as damaging to the information as downvote brigades.

dcow 5y ago
Exactly. Seems like you could just throttle votes or abstract the metric to smooth out spikes and account for brigading in either direction...
- prions 5y ago
  So you'd rather they manipulate the data and potentially mislead users? Sounds like a slippery slope to me \s
  - dcow 5y ago
    No I'd rather have a know established system/metric in place that amortizes brigading so as to diffuse the effects of mob attacks on internet content.
    - csee 5y ago
      I don't even buy YouTube's claim that "brigading" or "dislike attacks" is a real thing or a problem. If they have a minimum number of minutes that a video needs to be watched before a vote is counted, then that vote is legitimate, full stop. YouTube are simply unhappy about which videos users dislike, whether it's the White House's videos, important brands, or YT's own videos.
      - dcow 5y ago
        I like that solution even more.
      - davorak 5y ago
        > If they have a minimum number of minutes that a video needs to be watched before a vote is counted I think that unintentionally removes down votes on obviously bad videos that people do not waste much time watching.
        JoshTriplett 5y ago
        Agreed. Sometimes you know within a couple of seconds that a video isn't what the title and thumbnail claims it is, and that's a great reason to hit "dislike". For instance, an hour-long video claiming to be what you're looking for, but actually consisting of a still image and a URL to a scam/spam site.
      - JoshTriplett 5y ago
        > I don't even buy YouTube's claim that "brigading" or "dislike attacks" is a real thing or a problem. If they have a minimum number of minutes that a video needs to be watched before a vote is counted, then that vote is legitimate, full stop. I've seen dislike attacks happen. And if it takes a non-trivial procedure to make them count, people will document that procedure. For instance, hypothetically: "Alright everybody, here's the link. Remember, mute the tab right away but don't mute the video itself; wait 2 minutes (the timer that starts when you click the link will go green to let you know), then click the dislike button." I've seen much more complex instructions offered as part of gaming a poll, as well as sites built to help semi-automate or simplify the process. The key distinction that would be useful for YouTube to measure: did you encounter the video and then dislike it, or did you visit a video you were referred to for the sole purpose of disliking it? I don't think hiding dislike counts serves that purpose, though.
  - fuckcensorship 5y ago
    YouTube has been manipulating like/dislike data for the White House for months now [1]. [1]: https://81m.org/ https://81m.org/ Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20211023061808/https://81m.org/ https://web.archive.org/web/20211023061808/https://81m.org/
    - jakear 5y ago
      It's interesting data, but the obvious response from YouTube would be "we run sophisticated click fraud detection algorithms and periodically remove interactions determined to be from fraudulent accounts; given the current political climate White House videos attract more of these types of fraud than other videos on our platform and thus the effect is more pronounced on their videos". The numbers in question are small enough (~1k missing interactions) that it doesn't seem totally unreasonable.
    - mike_d 5y ago
      It looks like the creator is counting any decrease in dislikes over time as manipulation, without a firm understanding of how large scale systems work. Say for example I used a batch of 100 HN accounts to mass downvote your comment. After a while an hourly job runs that looks at all those votes in aggregate and determines they were coordinated (for simplicity sake they all came from the same IP) and removes them. You'd see a large shift in the net score of your comment all of the sudden. This isn't HN manipulating anything, it is them doing their job to prevent abuse on the platform.
      - water8 5y ago
        Oh honey, were you born yesterday? Of course they modify the numbers especially for political or covid related topics
        lalaland1125 5y ago
        What would even be the point of faking the dislike/like counts? Does anyone actually look at them compared to polls?
        5y ago
  - lrem 5y ago
    Isn't that what Reddit is doing to quite some success?
- smaryjerry 5y ago
  Spikes don’t really mean anything. If a video ‘goes viral’ it will all of a sudden get a lot of responses. And sometimes those will all be bad if it’s a bad video or unpopular opinion. Interpreting that as bot voting or manipulation should have nothing to do with spikes.
scoopertrooper 5y ago
Seems like a middle ground solution might be to restrict the display of downvotes to videos that meet a certain viewership threshold. That way organic voting would make brigading more difficult.
- a_f 5y ago
  Steam has a useful chart which shows the votes/reviews over time with the ability to filter by language, purchase type, play time etc. Youtube could implement something similar to help shine a light on brigading
  - bavell 5y ago
    The steam review graph is brilliant and an example of getting it right. YT seems to have succumbed to it's incumbent position in the market and has stopped innovating - it now seeks only to maintain the status quo and apparently thinks dislikes are a threat to that.
pugets 5y ago
YT can counter brigades by giving viewers even more statistics about a video. Example: what’s the like to dislike ratio of a video in the past 7, 30, or 90 days, compared to all-time? Steam (a video game store) does this already. They categorize reviews as either being recent (made in the last 30 days) or all-time. If a game has excellent all-time reviews, but mixed recent reviews, then you can suspect something has recently upset the playerbase.
- eropple 5y ago
  You can't, however, determine if what upset the player base is "the game developer is a woman" or "the game developer is gay" or "a streamer with a toxic following got mad at the game". It is low signal all the way through, and relegating likes and dislikes to a signal for recommendations is wise.
  - bavell 5y ago
    Umm... What? I have never seen any of those things you mentioned on a steam review, ever, in my ~15yrs on the platform. The steam review graph is a fantastically useful tool for users with a huge SNR and I don't understand why you think otherwise.
    - fishtacos 5y ago
      You can probably google more, but here's a prominent example of why you're incorrect with your assumptions: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-09-25-total-war-rome-2-review-bombed-on-steam-over-female-characters-creative-assembly-says-its-working-as-intended https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-09-25-total-war-rome... "Total War: Rome 2 has suffered a Steam review bombing run over women characters and a recent update - but it turns out the game is working as intended. "Creative Assembly's PC strategy game, which came out in 2013, saw hundreds of new negative Steam reviews this week over the frequency with which women generals show up in the game and related claims about historical accuracy." and another one: https://www.techspot.com/news/91212-life-strange-true-colors-review-bombed-because-flag.html https://www.techspot.com/news/91212-life-strange-true-colors... "The reason behind the Chinese users' anger is the inclusion of a symbol banned in their country. On the main street of the game's Haven Springs setting is a shop called Treasures of Tibet, which displays a Tibetan flag prominently outside the store." Valve has come out on more than one occasion to let customers and studios know that they are constantly working to mitigate brigading. EDIT: While not the norm, as you were alluding, gamer toxicity and brigading can also be relatively mainstream. A popular website among such circles is https://www.oneangrygamer.net/ https://www.oneangrygamer.net/ Reading the posts and comments can be quite revolting.

dcow 5y ago

Exactly. Seems like you could just throttle votes or abstract the metric to smooth out spikes and account for brigading in either direction...

prions 5y ago
So you'd rather they manipulate the data and potentially mislead users? Sounds like a slippery slope to me \s
- dcow 5y ago
  No I'd rather have a know established system/metric in place that amortizes brigading so as to diffuse the effects of mob attacks on internet content.
  - csee 5y ago
    I don't even buy YouTube's claim that "brigading" or "dislike attacks" is a real thing or a problem. If they have a minimum number of minutes that a video needs to be watched before a vote is counted, then that vote is legitimate, full stop. YouTube are simply unhappy about which videos users dislike, whether it's the White House's videos, important brands, or YT's own videos.
    - dcow 5y ago
      I like that solution even more.
    - davorak 5y ago
      > If they have a minimum number of minutes that a video needs to be watched before a vote is counted I think that unintentionally removes down votes on obviously bad videos that people do not waste much time watching.
      - JoshTriplett 5y ago
        Agreed. Sometimes you know within a couple of seconds that a video isn't what the title and thumbnail claims it is, and that's a great reason to hit "dislike". For instance, an hour-long video claiming to be what you're looking for, but actually consisting of a still image and a URL to a scam/spam site.
    - JoshTriplett 5y ago
      > I don't even buy YouTube's claim that "brigading" or "dislike attacks" is a real thing or a problem. If they have a minimum number of minutes that a video needs to be watched before a vote is counted, then that vote is legitimate, full stop. I've seen dislike attacks happen. And if it takes a non-trivial procedure to make them count, people will document that procedure. For instance, hypothetically: "Alright everybody, here's the link. Remember, mute the tab right away but don't mute the video itself; wait 2 minutes (the timer that starts when you click the link will go green to let you know), then click the dislike button." I've seen much more complex instructions offered as part of gaming a poll, as well as sites built to help semi-automate or simplify the process. The key distinction that would be useful for YouTube to measure: did you encounter the video and then dislike it, or did you visit a video you were referred to for the sole purpose of disliking it? I don't think hiding dislike counts serves that purpose, though.
- fuckcensorship 5y ago
  YouTube has been manipulating like/dislike data for the White House for months now [1]. [1]: https://81m.org/ https://81m.org/ Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20211023061808/https://81m.org/ https://web.archive.org/web/20211023061808/https://81m.org/
  - jakear 5y ago
    It's interesting data, but the obvious response from YouTube would be "we run sophisticated click fraud detection algorithms and periodically remove interactions determined to be from fraudulent accounts; given the current political climate White House videos attract more of these types of fraud than other videos on our platform and thus the effect is more pronounced on their videos". The numbers in question are small enough (~1k missing interactions) that it doesn't seem totally unreasonable.
  - mike_d 5y ago
    It looks like the creator is counting any decrease in dislikes over time as manipulation, without a firm understanding of how large scale systems work. Say for example I used a batch of 100 HN accounts to mass downvote your comment. After a while an hourly job runs that looks at all those votes in aggregate and determines they were coordinated (for simplicity sake they all came from the same IP) and removes them. You'd see a large shift in the net score of your comment all of the sudden. This isn't HN manipulating anything, it is them doing their job to prevent abuse on the platform.
    - water8 5y ago
      Oh honey, were you born yesterday? Of course they modify the numbers especially for political or covid related topics
      - lalaland1125 5y ago
        What would even be the point of faking the dislike/like counts? Does anyone actually look at them compared to polls?
      - 5y ago
- lrem 5y ago
  Isn't that what Reddit is doing to quite some success?
smaryjerry 5y ago
Spikes don’t really mean anything. If a video ‘goes viral’ it will all of a sudden get a lot of responses. And sometimes those will all be bad if it’s a bad video or unpopular opinion. Interpreting that as bot voting or manipulation should have nothing to do with spikes.

scoopertrooper 5y ago

Seems like a middle ground solution might be to restrict the display of downvotes to videos that meet a certain viewership threshold. That way organic voting would make brigading more difficult.

a_f 5y ago
Steam has a useful chart which shows the votes/reviews over time with the ability to filter by language, purchase type, play time etc. Youtube could implement something similar to help shine a light on brigading
- bavell 5y ago
  The steam review graph is brilliant and an example of getting it right. YT seems to have succumbed to it's incumbent position in the market and has stopped innovating - it now seeks only to maintain the status quo and apparently thinks dislikes are a threat to that.

pugets 5y ago

YT can counter brigades by giving viewers even more statistics about a video. Example: what’s the like to dislike ratio of a video in the past 7, 30, or 90 days, compared to all-time? Steam (a video game store) does this already. They categorize reviews as either being recent (made in the last 30 days) or all-time. If a game has excellent all-time reviews, but mixed recent reviews, then you can suspect something has recently upset the playerbase.

eropple 5y ago
You can't, however, determine if what upset the player base is "the game developer is a woman" or "the game developer is gay" or "a streamer with a toxic following got mad at the game". It is low signal all the way through, and relegating likes and dislikes to a signal for recommendations is wise.
- bavell 5y ago
  Umm... What? I have never seen any of those things you mentioned on a steam review, ever, in my ~15yrs on the platform. The steam review graph is a fantastically useful tool for users with a huge SNR and I don't understand why you think otherwise.
  - fishtacos 5y ago
    You can probably google more, but here's a prominent example of why you're incorrect with your assumptions: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-09-25-total-war-rome-2-review-bombed-on-steam-over-female-characters-creative-assembly-says-its-working-as-intended https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-09-25-total-war-rome... "Total War: Rome 2 has suffered a Steam review bombing run over women characters and a recent update - but it turns out the game is working as intended. "Creative Assembly's PC strategy game, which came out in 2013, saw hundreds of new negative Steam reviews this week over the frequency with which women generals show up in the game and related claims about historical accuracy." and another one: https://www.techspot.com/news/91212-life-strange-true-colors-review-bombed-because-flag.html https://www.techspot.com/news/91212-life-strange-true-colors... "The reason behind the Chinese users' anger is the inclusion of a symbol banned in their country. On the main street of the game's Haven Springs setting is a shop called Treasures of Tibet, which displays a Tibetan flag prominently outside the store." Valve has come out on more than one occasion to let customers and studios know that they are constantly working to mitigate brigading. EDIT: While not the norm, as you were alluding, gamer toxicity and brigading can also be relatively mainstream. A popular website among such circles is https://www.oneangrygamer.net/ https://www.oneangrygamer.net/ Reading the posts and comments can be quite revolting.