cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/19421887

DeArrow is an open source browser extension for crowdsourcing better titles and thumbnails on YouTube. The goal is to make titles accurate and reduce sensationalism. No more arrows, ridiculous faces, and no more clickbait.

“Clickbait” isn’t the exception anymore, it’s becoming the norm. Many have even started going through their entire backlog, changing old titles and thumbnails to be more attention grabbing and vague.

It’s no one’s fault. It’s a system that creates a race to the bottom.

DeArrow hopes to stop this cycle. It’s time to return to a more peaceful experience.

  • Lemminary
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    127 days ago

    I like the concept and I have it installed, but I don’t contribute to it because I find it challenging to think of better titles. It’s not easy like with Sponsorblock that I regularly submit to. For example, sometimes I need to watch most of the video first to be accurate, and by then I’ve already moved on to the next video. Other times it’s simply hard for me to condense the content of the video accurately into so many characters when the original title is way off.

    I do like the way it makes all the titles lowercase, though. I find that changes the tone of the video feed quite a bit.

    • @[email protected]
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      7 days ago

      This might actually be one of the few things AI could be used for. ChatGPT could download the transcript and just build a short summary.

      Although chances are you’re just replacing one shitty thing with a different shitty thing.

      • @wildn0x
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        47 days ago

        YouTube has already been helpful to a degree. Sometimes I’ll open their AI summarize and it will give all the details along with timestamps. There are videos where I saw the summary and passed on watching because the video was mostly filler material.

      • Lemminary
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        37 days ago

        Yeah, I think there was something like that floating around. I imagine it’s costly, though, but it’d be nice to have.

      • @yamanii
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        17 days ago

        ChatGPT could download the transcript and just build a short summary.

        Then you wouldn’t watch the video and the creator just lost.

        • @Takumidesh
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          27 days ago

          If your video can be replaced by a title, it probably wasn’t with watching

        • @[email protected]
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          16 days ago

          Isn’t that basically the point of the extension? Making sure you’re not tricked into watching BS content?