Wanted to ask you about this article, how do you remember the early days of the internet (I was sadly too young at that time). Do you wish it back? And do you think it can ever be like that again? I would be very interested

  • @Anders429
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    10410 months ago

    Drives me crazy when I see this kind of format for things like programming. Nothing like pausing the video and trying to see what their code says.

    • Nepenthe
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      10 months ago

      I was all set to start bitching about the obligatory 10-15 minutes of “older, medicated suburban housewife shows off her whole yarn closet, every needle, which needle she likes (it’s not better, it’s just pretty), her fingernails, pushes her state-mandated store, and then finishes off with an internet recipe story about how her gramgram was fleeing the war and had to knit jasmine stitch backwards to survive…before fucking up the stitch and never editing that part out. But it’s ok because her hands were in the way the whole time anyway.”

      But I think you’ve found the only thing that has me beat.

      I will at least use this time to implore any knitting/crochet peeps on the fediverse that if you or someone you love is uploading how-to videos anywhere on the web…SHOW ME THE DAMN STITCH SO I CAN LEAVE. I HAVE PROJECTS, I DO NOT CARE.

      • swan_pr
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        510 months ago

        I’ll usually go with the length of the video in cases like this. Anything above 5 minutes is a red flag!

        • deejay4am
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          2710 months ago

          YT algorithm favors videos that are at least 10 minutes (they fit more ads in) so those get recommended more. As a result, runtimes get padded with fluff so you get recommended to more viewers.

          • @flipthetube
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            1210 months ago

            That’s disgusting.

            I feel like relying on the algorithms completely misses the human elements.

            If I need an answer to something, I want my top results to be short and sweet. If I want a documentary or dj set, I don’t want a 3-10 minute version.

            • swan_pr
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              110 months ago

              Of course, it all depends on the context. A tutorial for a specific knitting stitch can be done in under 5 minutes, other stuff not so much! There was also an interesting thread somewhere yesterday asking why don’t people use their subscription feed on YT and the answers were a good representation of the user base here, ie: most do use it and avoid the algo at all costs! So I think we’re all on the same page here, we search and use YT in a way that is most efficient but not the most common :)

          • Noah Gibbs
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            110 months ago

            @4am @swan_pr And it’s much harder to sell ads on text instructions 😞

            The ad-driven nature of the internet means we get that instead of what we want.

              • Noah Gibbs
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                110 months ago

                @keith @4am @swan_pr

                It’s still hard that it cuts off the early internet. Ads driven by search engines means SEO, which mean making it *very* hard to find the kind of instructions you can’t sell ads on.

                It’s understandable that people write what they can get paid for. It’s hard that the early Internet methods of doing this are now effectively dead, with no replacement.

                  • Noah Gibbs
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                    19 months ago

                    @Tooden @keith @4am @swan_pr

                    Unfortunately, no. The answer to “ads drive off good content with ad-friendly content” is not going to be more ad-friendly content.

                    That’s already driven the payments for ads down well below liveable levels. Making the content more cheaply is only going to increase that trend.

                    You can still make content better than what makes sense for ad-supported. But it’s going to be buried even deeper in the ad-ecosystem deluge, so it won’t really be findable.

        • Nepenthe
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          10 months ago

          I still remember a video I found a year ago that was just barely over a whole minute. It was a guy doing one single really clear cable stitch in complete silence, and then the video cuts out.

          I do not know who they are, but I will vouch for that man before god.

          Doing a cursory search to see if I can find it again, the second video suggested to me is 26:44 long.

        • flopperdog
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          19 months ago

          @swan_pr @Provider @bstix @Anders429 @Nepenthe
          A five minute video is the WORST because it’s going to be four minutes of branding, then 12 seconds of them showing me where in the menu the option I need was buried, then 48 seconds of Don’t Forget To Like And Subscribe Kay Thanks Bye!

        • Nepenthe
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          10 months ago

          I assume it all works the same on mastodon, if it’s showing up ok, so:

          Bold is 2 asterisks on either side
          like ** this **

          Italics is either one asterisk on each side like * this * or underscores _ like this _ (does this show up italicized for you?)

          • Strikethrough is ~~ two tildes ~~ and looks like this

          Obviously just remove the spaces in between the symbols and letters, because I can’t figure out yet how to stop markdown from working on here any other way, in order to depict it precisely

        • Nepenthe
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          110 months ago

          If you can pull it off, you have my blessing. Better post it when you’re done, though.

        • Nepenthe
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          9 months ago

          Ok, explain. Link me. I’ve been turning this over in my head. I cannot fathom what “fabric artist trading card” could possibly be

    • @Thaurin
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      310 months ago

      Reading documentation is still king here.

    • @[email protected]
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      210 months ago

      @Anders429 @bstix lol actually i watch videos for programming sometimes - what is really bad is getting a good look at that one knitting stitch that has a six letter abbreviation and only the worst text explanations WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH TAKING A PICTURE OF THIS

    • Svenja
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      210 months ago

      @Anders429 @bstix for me its even not accessible then, because I can’t see the Code in the Video on Screen, ocr is also not reliable there.