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> It is bad for viewers, bad for video creators, and bad for YouTube’s ability to curate and tailor videos to potential viewers. First, a question: any random

> It is bad for viewers, bad for video creators, and bad for YouTube’s ability to curate and tailor videos to potential viewers. First, a question: any random person on the internet, without being logged in, used to be able to Thumb Up a YouTube video? If that's true, then I bet it was very easy to spam. Giving it a Thumb Up, without being logged in, would also mean that none of your friends had any idea that you had given it a Thumb Up, and you could never again find a history of things you had Thumbed Up. And now, to upvote, you need to be logged in... What website, anywhere on the internet, allows you to upvote without being logged in? Not HackerNews. Not Reddit. Not Facebook. By knowing who you Follow, Google and YouTube now have a much better way to find information that you care about. If I search on YouTube for "python", it has a chance to know that I mean the programming language, because of who I'm Following. Also, every single +1 that you get on your YouTube videos now has a real person behind it. Every single +1 is now worth Gold. Every single +1 has a better chance to go viral, because the Followers of that person who clicked +1 have a chance to see it. If I search on YouTube for something, and I see "Wil Wheaton +1d this," I'm MUCH more likely to want to check it out.

deleted 15y ago
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adventureful 15y ago
A lot of news sites allow voting without being logged in, as well as in the comment sections. Business Insider, the largest business site, allows it (Quantcast #235). It's premised on the notion that for 99.999% of people, they're not going to bother going through any amount of hassle to bolster votes artificially. It works, it's not worth the time or effort to game content and comments that are modest in traffic and throw-away in nature. The only way it's worth gaming, is on front pages like Reddit where there's a massive simultaneous concentration of traffic.
- sad_panda 15y ago
  Not just Reddit, HN derives tremendous value from quality commenting. Commenting with zero accountability (authenticated accounts, voting, flagging, whatever) is basically doomed to be awful and a net negative to the service.
  - AkThhhpppt 15y ago
    "Very likely to be" - yes, definitely. "Doomed to be" - not even nearly. There are blog communities I've been a part of that knock HN comments out of the ring, with zero friction to comment (a name and email address are required, but that email address is never validated). It's about moderation and caring enough to grow a community, not the specific mechanism you use to do that.
Wilya 15y ago
You can't thumb up on Youtube without a Google Account (which is not exactly the same as a Google+ account). And, I already get the +1s (or thumbs up, or whatever it's called) of the people I follow on Youtube, in my Youtube stream. And I do like things there. On the other hand, sharing ? I'd think twice before doing it.
- nekojima 15y ago
  I have a Youtube only account, not linked to any other Google services or their hosted email, and I can up or down vote any of the three videos I just randomly clicked on to check this out.
  - Wilya 15y ago
    Err, it most likely is also a Google account, even a basic one, or at least linked to one. Unless you know a trick that I don't. As far as I know, the migration from Youtube accounts to Google accounts has been forced some time ago (I tried to avoid it as long as I could).
    - BigTigger 15y ago
      Surely it's simple enough to create a google account that's only used for youtube? We do it on our server at home.
- VikingCoder 15y ago
  So, to make some people happy, Google would have to allow you to have a separate Google account, Google+ account, and YouTube account. To make other people happy, it would be completely optional to link those accounts together - but keep them separate, for some reason. To make other people happy, they should be able to use one account to do all of the those things. Finally, to make other people happy, Google should just be a search engine with 10 blue links.
  - crag 15y ago
    Actually you can have separate accounts right now. And you can link all the account right now, if your want too. This also works with Google Apps too. BUt I don't have a Google + account. Though not for Google not trying. And frankly I don't want one. FB is enough for me.
lubujackson 15y ago
Big difference between upvoting a video on YouTube for other people on YouTube and giving a +1 to a video that could possibly go on your Google+ wall (if that even exists), influence your search results in ways you don't want, or show up awkwardly in other strange ways while using other Google products like Gmail. The real problem is the effects are unknown and upvoting is no longer a contained action with a specific social purpose. That little upvote is a commodity that Google will exploit however it can to "bring the social" or whatever they're calling it nowadays. I think users innately understand this and are shying away from Google+ because they can sniff where all this is heading - my boss reading that I "liked" a LOLcats video while at work or my wife seeing that I "plussed" a review of Avengers by a woman in lingerie or something. If users don't know what their actions will produce (especially socially) they are going to avoid it!
- VikingCoder 15y ago
  > giving a +1 to a video that could possibly go on your Google+ wall (if that even exists) It does not exist. You can specifically Share a video with Circles. > influence your search results in ways you don't want, In the upper right on your Search page, you can click "Hide personal results." > or show up awkwardly in other strange ways while using other Google products like Gmail [citation needed] > The real problem is the effects are unknown and upvoting is no longer a contained action with a specific social purpose. What if you want to share with your circles, what if you want things you've +1'd to influence your search results, what if you want to see better ads rather than crappy ads? > my boss reading that I "liked" a LOLcats video while at work Don't Share that with your boss. That's what Circles are for. > my wife seeing that I "plussed" a review of Avengers by a woman in lingerie or something +1's are inherently public. I can appreciate that you like to give feedback to content creators saying, "Hey, I liked this!" Google is tying the "I" in that sentence to your Google+ account. I think the days of "Anonymous Likes" are somewhat over... They were always susceptible to spamming, anyway. And they were never really as anonymous as we liked to think they were.
  - acqq 15y ago
    Technically, "Anonymous Likes" aren't really susceptible to spamming, as through the years Google developed enormous infrastructure to avoid spamming in ad-clicks. The same technology can be easily used for "Anonymous Likes." The decision to eliminate "Anonymous Likes" is not a result of technical needs, it's a decision "from the above" to force a "more social" Google.
citricsquid 15y ago
Imagine if hackernews replaced upvoting with tweeting, that's what they're doing.
- raverbashing 15y ago
  Couldn't think of a better analogy myself
- gregable 15y ago
  That's not quite correct. As far as I can tell, +1'ing things does not appear in your stream and won't appear in the streams of the folks who are following you. Sharing does, but not +1'ing. +1'ing does appear on your profile under the +1 tab if 1) someone navigates over there and 2) you have made that tab visible to that person (you can control who can see that tab). If someone visits the object that you +1'ed, then they can also see that you +1'ed it.
  - zmmmmm 15y ago
    There's a major issue of clarity here though. It doesn't matter what really happens, if the user is unsure they'll opt for not doing it. The only thing I remember for sure about +1 was that Google made me hyper aware that my +1's were public. Which is why I almost never +1 anything except those that reflect well on me professionally (ie. it's about projecting an image of myself, nothing to do with what I actually like). Ironically a few weeks ago somebody +1's one of my Google Code projects and I was quite surprised that I couldn't find out who it was. It turns out that +1's are public but in a very confusing way. I suppose on that person's profile somewhere the +1 is visible, but I have no way to find it.
    - notatoad 15y ago
      how was the user sure what happened before? with the old system, you were thumbs-upping a video from your google account. your thumbs ups were probably visible somewhere on youtube, and the things that you thumbed up were reported back to google and probably influenced your search results. now, you're +1ing a video from your google account. your +1s are visible somewhere in google+ and are reported back to google and influence your search results. it's the exact same thing, the button just looks different.
DavidAbrams 15y ago
There's a big difference between being "logged into" YouTube and signing up for Google+. This just completes Googles utter failure with Google Video and YouTube. They never understood why Google Video failed, and YouTube remains a steaming pile of shit under Google's ownership. And it's getting worse.
dendory 15y ago
Right now your IP can vote once a day per video I believe. Yes it's pretty easy to game, but the rating % is amazingly accurate to tell me whether I'm gonna enjoy a video or not.
bookwormAT 15y ago
I agree with and upvoted your post, but there is one assumption you make that I'm not sure is correct: "If I search on YouTube for "python", it has a chance to know that I mean the programming language, because of who I'm Following." Are you really not interested in the snake just because you follow a lot of programmers? For example, I follow the hacker news circle on Google+, because I respect technical expertise and interests of you guys. Some of you might like to write about some other topic like sports, but that's not why I'm following you. Now if I do a Google search for "running shoes", how can Google know that everything you wrote about this topic is not to be used to "improve" my ranking?
codeodor 15y ago
> First, a question: any random person on the internet, without being logged in, used to be able to Thumb Up a YouTube video? I think you needed to be logged in (or it would ask you to log in), but the point was that it didn't require a Google Plus account.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

adventureful 15y ago

A lot of news sites allow voting without being logged in, as well as in the comment sections. Business Insider, the largest business site, allows it (Quantcast #235). It's premised on the notion that for 99.999% of people, they're not going to bother going through any amount of hassle to bolster votes artificially. It works, it's not worth the time or effort to game content and comments that are modest in traffic and throw-away in nature. The only way it's worth gaming, is on front pages like Reddit where there's a massive simultaneous concentration of traffic.

sad_panda 15y ago
Not just Reddit, HN derives tremendous value from quality commenting. Commenting with zero accountability (authenticated accounts, voting, flagging, whatever) is basically doomed to be awful and a net negative to the service.
- AkThhhpppt 15y ago
  "Very likely to be" - yes, definitely. "Doomed to be" - not even nearly. There are blog communities I've been a part of that knock HN comments out of the ring, with zero friction to comment (a name and email address are required, but that email address is never validated). It's about moderation and caring enough to grow a community, not the specific mechanism you use to do that.

Wilya 15y ago

You can't thumb up on Youtube without a Google Account (which is not exactly the same as a Google+ account). And, I already get the +1s (or thumbs up, or whatever it's called) of the people I follow on Youtube, in my Youtube stream. And I do like things there. On the other hand, sharing ? I'd think twice before doing it.

nekojima 15y ago
I have a Youtube only account, not linked to any other Google services or their hosted email, and I can up or down vote any of the three videos I just randomly clicked on to check this out.
- Wilya 15y ago
  Err, it most likely is also a Google account, even a basic one, or at least linked to one. Unless you know a trick that I don't. As far as I know, the migration from Youtube accounts to Google accounts has been forced some time ago (I tried to avoid it as long as I could).
  - BigTigger 15y ago
    Surely it's simple enough to create a google account that's only used for youtube? We do it on our server at home.
VikingCoder 15y ago
So, to make some people happy, Google would have to allow you to have a separate Google account, Google+ account, and YouTube account. To make other people happy, it would be completely optional to link those accounts together - but keep them separate, for some reason. To make other people happy, they should be able to use one account to do all of the those things. Finally, to make other people happy, Google should just be a search engine with 10 blue links.
- crag 15y ago
  Actually you can have separate accounts right now. And you can link all the account right now, if your want too. This also works with Google Apps too. BUt I don't have a Google + account. Though not for Google not trying. And frankly I don't want one. FB is enough for me.

lubujackson 15y ago

Big difference between upvoting a video on YouTube for other people on YouTube and giving a +1 to a video that could possibly go on your Google+ wall (if that even exists), influence your search results in ways you don't want, or show up awkwardly in other strange ways while using other Google products like Gmail. The real problem is the effects are unknown and upvoting is no longer a contained action with a specific social purpose. That little upvote is a commodity that Google will exploit however it can to "bring the social" or whatever they're calling it nowadays. I think users innately understand this and are shying away from Google+ because they can sniff where all this is heading - my boss reading that I "liked" a LOLcats video while at work or my wife seeing that I "plussed" a review of Avengers by a woman in lingerie or something. If users don't know what their actions will produce (especially socially) they are going to avoid it!

VikingCoder 15y ago
> giving a +1 to a video that could possibly go on your Google+ wall (if that even exists) It does not exist. You can specifically Share a video with Circles. > influence your search results in ways you don't want, In the upper right on your Search page, you can click "Hide personal results." > or show up awkwardly in other strange ways while using other Google products like Gmail [citation needed] > The real problem is the effects are unknown and upvoting is no longer a contained action with a specific social purpose. What if you want to share with your circles, what if you want things you've +1'd to influence your search results, what if you want to see better ads rather than crappy ads? > my boss reading that I "liked" a LOLcats video while at work Don't Share that with your boss. That's what Circles are for. > my wife seeing that I "plussed" a review of Avengers by a woman in lingerie or something +1's are inherently public. I can appreciate that you like to give feedback to content creators saying, "Hey, I liked this!" Google is tying the "I" in that sentence to your Google+ account. I think the days of "Anonymous Likes" are somewhat over... They were always susceptible to spamming, anyway. And they were never really as anonymous as we liked to think they were.
- acqq 15y ago
  Technically, "Anonymous Likes" aren't really susceptible to spamming, as through the years Google developed enormous infrastructure to avoid spamming in ad-clicks. The same technology can be easily used for "Anonymous Likes." The decision to eliminate "Anonymous Likes" is not a result of technical needs, it's a decision "from the above" to force a "more social" Google.

citricsquid 15y ago

Imagine if hackernews replaced upvoting with tweeting, that's what they're doing.

raverbashing 15y ago
Couldn't think of a better analogy myself
gregable 15y ago
That's not quite correct. As far as I can tell, +1'ing things does not appear in your stream and won't appear in the streams of the folks who are following you. Sharing does, but not +1'ing. +1'ing does appear on your profile under the +1 tab if 1) someone navigates over there and 2) you have made that tab visible to that person (you can control who can see that tab). If someone visits the object that you +1'ed, then they can also see that you +1'ed it.
- zmmmmm 15y ago
  There's a major issue of clarity here though. It doesn't matter what really happens, if the user is unsure they'll opt for not doing it. The only thing I remember for sure about +1 was that Google made me hyper aware that my +1's were public. Which is why I almost never +1 anything except those that reflect well on me professionally (ie. it's about projecting an image of myself, nothing to do with what I actually like). Ironically a few weeks ago somebody +1's one of my Google Code projects and I was quite surprised that I couldn't find out who it was. It turns out that +1's are public but in a very confusing way. I suppose on that person's profile somewhere the +1 is visible, but I have no way to find it.
  - notatoad 15y ago
    how was the user sure what happened before? with the old system, you were thumbs-upping a video from your google account. your thumbs ups were probably visible somewhere on youtube, and the things that you thumbed up were reported back to google and probably influenced your search results. now, you're +1ing a video from your google account. your +1s are visible somewhere in google+ and are reported back to google and influence your search results. it's the exact same thing, the button just looks different.

DavidAbrams 15y ago

There's a big difference between being "logged into" YouTube and signing up for Google+. This just completes Googles utter failure with Google Video and YouTube. They never understood why Google Video failed, and YouTube remains a steaming pile of shit under Google's ownership. And it's getting worse.

dendory 15y ago

Right now your IP can vote once a day per video I believe. Yes it's pretty easy to game, but the rating % is amazingly accurate to tell me whether I'm gonna enjoy a video or not.

bookwormAT 15y ago

I agree with and upvoted your post, but there is one assumption you make that I'm not sure is correct: "If I search on YouTube for "python", it has a chance to know that I mean the programming language, because of who I'm Following." Are you really not interested in the snake just because you follow a lot of programmers? For example, I follow the hacker news circle on Google+, because I respect technical expertise and interests of you guys. Some of you might like to write about some other topic like sports, but that's not why I'm following you. Now if I do a Google search for "running shoes", how can Google know that everything you wrote about this topic is not to be used to "improve" my ranking?

codeodor 15y ago

> First, a question: any random person on the internet, without being logged in, used to be able to Thumb Up a YouTube video? I think you needed to be logged in (or it would ask you to log in), but the point was that it didn't require a Google Plus account.