Technology

59672 readers

2865 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

509

DeArrow is an open source browser extension for crowdsourcing better titles and thumbnails on YouTube. (dearrow.ajay.app)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

87 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I used this within smart tube for a while, but honestly I kind of missed some of the clockbait titles. There problem I faced was that it wasn't clear when a title had been replaced or not, so when you did find a video with a relatively clockbait titles, it gave you a bit of a false sense of security. I also found that sometimes the crowd sourced titles were just boring, albeit accurate.

Maybe I'm just weird or maybe I've just been browsing YouTube for so long that I'm used to it, but for now it's an addon I'll skip, though I'm very glad it exists.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I turn it off and on to see which changed. An indicator would be nice. Maybe an icon that I can hover over to reveal the original thumbnail and title.

I get where you are coming from. If I follow a channel then I already get a feel of what the content will be even if the title or/thumbnail is clickbait. Also you lose part of the channel's charm. Exaggerations can be really funny.

It works a lot better for the trending section for unknown channels.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The icon and hover to reveal previous title has been available in the extension for a long while.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

Sorry. I was using it with Freetube, not the extension.

Thank you for pointing that out.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

I also found that sometimes the crowd sourced titles were just boring, albeit accurate.

It's the equivalent of the comedy geniuses that remove words from comics thinking it's always better.