Surely this new video won't make me seem like a crank.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEJpZjg8GuA
Algorithms are breaking how we think

YouTube
@TechConnectify Oooo I'm excited for this one.

@TechConnectify OK, thank you so much for coining the term "algorithmic complacency", I didn't have those words to articulate this and now I'm really glad I do.

One thing YouTube could do better, but I'm not holding my breath, is to surface the RSS feeds for channels again. They still exist but I think YouTube has an incentive in promoting their algorithm over self-curation via RSS.

@vkc @TechConnectify I even came to think we should just redirect YouTube RSS feeds from channels directly into our own Mastodon feeds using RSS bridges and just completely get rid of YouTube recommendations (and other material, eg. shorts) that way!

EDIT:
I was recommended https://feedsin.space which actually works for youtube rss feeds!

Now you can get YouTube here! --> @youtube-TechnologyConnections <--

feedsin.space

A service to load RSS feeds into the Fediverse

@TechConnectify If #YouTube surfaced their #RSS feeds they’d have to tacitly admit their “#podcasts” aren’t.
@mjgardner @vkc @TechConnectify I would love to subscribe to a few YT channels in a proper podcast app. But unskippable ads don’t work in downloaded media.
@mjgardner @TechConnectify still can't use the word podcast without feeling a gross "I hate Apple co-opting things that already existed" feeling in my brain. Surely we can come up with a better non branded term for digital radio shows.

@mikebabcock Your prejudice has led you to assume #Apple coined the term “#podcast” to co-opt it.

In fact, the term pre-dates their support. Ben Hammersley coined the term “podcasting” while covering audio #blogging for The Guardian in early February 2004: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2004/feb/12/broadcasting.digitalmedia

It was subsequently adopted by the #RSS audioblogging community, including @adam. Apple only added direct iTunes support in late June 2005.

/ @TechConnectify

Audible revolution

Online radio is booming thanks to iPods, cheap audio software and weblogs, reports Ben Hammersley.

The Guardian
Podcast - Wikipedia

@mikebabcock @mjgardner please quit tagging me in this conversation, I do not care about this
@vkc I’m sincerely sorry and will remove you from my contributions to this thread.

@mikebabcock @mjgardner @TechConnectify

Historically incorrect:
In October 2000, the concept of attaching sound and video files in RSS feeds was proposed in a draft by Tristan Louis.[19] The idea was implemented by Dave Winer, a software developer and an author of the RSS format.[20]

That was me, not Tristan

@adam @TechConnectify I understand that the concept and technology were older. At issue was @mikebabcock’s claim that the term “podcast” came from Apple.
@vkc
YouTube hides the RSS feeds so well, I only accidentally stumbled across it because Feedly is good at extracting feed URLs when you give it a site to subscribe to.
@TechConnectify

@ianrbuck @vkc @TechConnectify YouTube doesn't hide the feeds at all. The head element in the html on any YouTube channel page contains a link to the rss feed. When you paste a YouTube channel url into an RSS reader, it's just using a standard mechanism to read it from <head>

For example:

https://www.youtube.com/@telesurenglish contains

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UCmuTmpLY35O3csvhyA6vrkg">

Before you continue to YouTube

Unwatched (@unwatched@indieapps.space)

203 Posts, 1 Following, 278 Followers · RSS Video Player & Watch later Queue for YouTube Made by @mi@mastodon.xyz

Indie Apps
@vkc @TechConnectify wait, they still exist??? how do i get these feeds?
@antha Navigate to the main page for a youtube channel (for example: https://www.youtube.com/@channelname), and then use your browser to 'View Source' for the page. On firefox you do this by right clicking on some empty spot on the page and clicking 'View Page Source'. Then, search for 'RSS'. The first search result should look something like (type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=CHANNELID). You can use the URL that comes after href to add that feed to any RSS reader.
Before you continue to YouTube

@antha @vkc @TechConnectify The Link to the RSS feed is embedded in the channel page, so if you have an RSS reader (i use and can recommend miniflux) it should be able to find the feed if you give it the URL to the channel.

Manually, you need the channel id. The Link to the Technology connections feed for example is https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UCy0tKL1T7wFoYcxCe0xjN6Q

Works pretty well. I don't even use a youtube account, since i don't know what for.

@antha

It's rather hidden, in the HTML of the channel there is a link tag with the rss feed, if you nab the href you can use that in your reader, for example tech connection's is

https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UCy0tKL1T7wFoYcxCe0xjN6Q

As you ca see, they don't use the name but a horrible looking channel ID, because fuck users

How to Get an RSS Feed for a YouTube Channel

If you like RSS, you probably hate jumping around the internet to keep track of your favorite stuff. You tend to want all your content in one place—your R

@vkc @TechConnectify they definitely have incentive to prefer their interface.

But that incentive is why you should avoid it.

@LovesTha @vkc @TechConnectify disagree. If it weren't for Google using my previous viewing to recommend new things I wouldn't have found such channels as technology connections in the first place.
Limiting myself to watching things I've discovered on my own in a world of billions of feeds I can't parse in ten lifetimes is silly.

@mikebabcock @vkc @TechConnectify yes, but it also leads to watching endless hours of people getting hit in the balls and Nazi propaganda.

Google doesn't have your vest interests in mind when suggesting things to you, just on maximising time spent watching.

@LovesTha this is truly and hilariously false. I could screenshot all of my devices' youtube recommendations and NONE of them suggest things I don't like.
Sampler now: updates on scandals in America (good), comedian (good), Canadian politics (good), new car review (good), funky band (good), home inspection (good), code review (good), game review (good), oh and on page 3 there's a throwback tv clip I don't care about so I set it to "don't show me"
Algorithms really do work for a lot of people.
@TechConnectify no algorithm told me to watch this so am I even allowed to?

@chawkins @TechConnectify lemme just fire up an algorithm for your feed then: https://www.random.org/coins/?num=1&cur=40-antique.antonius-pius

Results say: heads, go for it

RANDOM.ORG - Coin Flipper

This form allows you to flip virtual coins based on true randomness, which for many purposes is better than the pseudo-random number algorithms typically used in computer programs.

@groxx @chawkins @TechConnectify always love it when my Antoninus Pius, Bronze Sestertius, Roman Empire Coin Algorithm recommends me something
@TechConnectify Looking forward to watching this with my coffee tomorrow! Also sorry to see you’re spending a lot more time on Bluesky than here, but I get it and appreciate you’re still cross posting your content

@wonkothesane I'll be real with you: this platform needs both better tools for those with large accounts and it needs a culture which isn't quite so trigger-happy to push popular accounts off the platform.

There are frictions here which are very hard to understand for the majority of its users.

@TechConnectify Yea, I agree with you. The work is being done, but painfully slow. Hopefully it’ll be ready when/if Bluesky enshittifies

@wonkothesane @TechConnectify honestly, I rather hope that Bluesky is constructed to make it functionally impossible. More options is always better. I don't have much faith in that yet, since there aren't yet any other "instances" of the ATproto, but theoretically it should be just as resistant to platform decay as the Fediverse.

Of course, the best case scenario would be for the ATproto and ActivityPub to eventually become natively cross-compatible. There's no real reason it couldn't be.

@wonkothesane @TechConnectify the hope I have is just in the board of directors (or whatever it's called) at Bluesky. Mike Masnick in particular is pretty bull-headed when it comes to opposing corporate nonsense.

@TechConnectify @wonkothesane

Just went to a bluesky "tweet". Couldn't see it because it requires you to have an account on BS.

How does anyone push accounts off a federated system?

@number6 Random hostile behavior on other people's posts is one way Fediverse drives people away. Trying to push one's own norms as inviolate rules onto others is another.

@TechConnectify @wonkothesane

@TechConnectify @wonkothesane I also got complaints from a regional server who said every post of mine got reported for no reason so they limited my account. I moved to the big one in hopes they have decent policies, but I don't post much here.
This is pretty ridiculous considering who I am and what I'm doing.
@TechConnectify @wonkothesane just saw a new brilliant youtube that argues that the friction (work to put in) is good and necessary: https://youtu.be/QEJpZjg8GuA
Algorithms are breaking how we think

YouTube
@pol_9000 You, uh, might want to look a little farther up this thread.
@TechConnectify @pol_9000
Wow. Nothing like recommending your own video to yourself.

@TechConnectify @pol_9000 I think Pol was being snarky. In some ways because Mastodon is harder to use that makes it a better platform.

That said, Mastodon is very much a labor of love. You had said computing is a solved problem, yet here is a very real problem that needs to be addressed: Making a usable decentralized social media platform! There's no large money interests developing it, and that's one of the reasons why it is difficult to use.

@TechConnectify @wonkothesane

Little confused when you say culture that isn't trigger happy to push big creators off the platform.

So from my perspective, I have shared your video in two places and star'd the post.

I don't have optics on any aggressive actions towards you, but I'm also not looking THAT hard. In what ways are people trying to push you off?

Technology Connections (@TechConnectify@mas.to)

@SymTrkl@anarres.family I have argued many times, and will continue to do so, that one of the biggest problems Mastodon has is that other people cannot see a lot of the crap that I see, AND there aren't any effective ways for the crowd to reinforce good behavior and discourage bad behavior. Until people sit with that reality, this simply isn't a functional social media tool for me.

mas.to

@oldgeek

Ah, I didn't realize there was more that he had spoken about.

That is one thing (of many) I am frustrated by with social media. The sort of disjointed nature of it. He had made the arguments in the past, but it wasn't in THAT post.

@BlueBee @oldgeek I'll remark that I've seen someone (can't recall who) *explicitly* state that the goal was to chase him off for being a popular YouTuber.

That prompted me to state: This is not on!

@alcinnz @oldgeek

I'm not sure what else can be done except begin regulating posts, but a central regulator is obviously bad. Too much power in too few hands.

I think we should probably have our own review structure of people kind of like steam does for games. But you get to say who's reviews you trust and you ignore everyone else's.

Where you and me and other people can say if we trust someone or not and then if you trust them their opinion of people affects the trust levels of others. And then allow people to be sortable by your personal trust levels for them.

I don't know if I'm explaining that well, but I don't want to spend too much time on it right now. Hopefully it gives the jist of the idea. If someone is a troll, I don't want to see them. But I don't trust a giant corporation to tell me who is and isn't a troll. YouTube surfaced Jordan Peterson to me and that man is an idiot.

So much of the pain people feel reading comments would be alleviated if we had a bit more proof required before allowing people to take up air time. I'm not saying turn people off, but label them differently, trolls shouldn't show up the same as someone who will engage with you with care.

@BlueBee @oldgeek Rate limiting was a suggestion...

Maybe sentiment analysis software...

@alcinnz @oldgeek

I really only trust who I trust.

If you say sentiment analysis I'm now trusting the software and the writer of the software.

I would prefer people's opinions, and especially those who I trust.

Just allow me to say if I trust people or not and allow others to subscribe to that trust or not.

And allow me on the fly to disagree with someone else's trust. Someone shows up as gold trust with a flurry of bad takes. Let me override and say I don't need to hear them anymore.

@BlueBee @oldgeek These tools would be for folks like the top-of-thread who can't respond to all the fan/hate-mail they get!

Fame has its downsides...

@alcinnz @oldgeek

Write me software that reviews video games. You can't.

@BlueBee @oldgeek I think we're in the context-collapse territory top-of-thread complained about in his video.

Also: Who said anything about video games?

I'll end the conversation here!

@alcinnz @oldgeek

This isn't context collapse lol.

And the reason why I'm talking about video games is because video games are less complex to review than people, and if you can't write a program that can review them, then you can't write a program that can review people.

On how this relates to his issue, he is saying that the problem is he gets 1 to 1 good to bad takes. A big part of this is that he has no method of sorting these takes. They are all viewed equally. So no matter if it's a well respected scientist or a troll, they all look the same.

Some method of determining trust is required, but if you give this to a single entity like with Blue sky it's too much power for an individual entity to have. But it still needs to be solved as the original poster has stated.

We have a giant pool of very capable reviewers who could help the larger creators sort through people and find who they should probably be listening to, but they lack the levers to provide that service.

@BlueBee @oldgeek Maybe people are hard to review, but text is quite easy to approximate an automated solution for. I was thinking of a system which judges based on word choice, it works reasonably well for eMail.

Anyways I'm not all that interested in this meta-talk...

@BlueBee @oldgeek Though looking at where I joined the conversation...

I think its just a matter of calling out behavior we disapprove of when we say it. The fact that there's people who don't want to see celebs here is a cultural issue, & needs to be addressed culturally.

@alcinnz @oldgeek

This isn't a room full of people, it's a communication protocol.

You can't brow beat the bots out of the room.

@BlueBee Not sure if you are aware, but the “show me the proof…” response is typically viewed as a “reply guy” approach and is a form of sealioning

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning

I just started following TC and have seen his posts about people giving him grief on Mastodon. It may be worth scrolling back through his feed a bit before asking him to do the work to prove his experience to you

Sealioning - Wikipedia

@neff

Wow, look at the difference between your reply and the guys above you.