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How do you guys remember the early days of the internet? What do you miss about it?
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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.
I'll usually go with the length of the video in cases like this. Anything above 5 minutes is a red flag!
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.
Thatβs 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 donβt want a 3-10 minute version.
@4am @swan_pr It'd be nice if they do that padding at the end, not the beginning.
@4am @swan_pr And it's much harder to sell ads on text instructions π
The ad-driven nature of the internet means we get that instead of what we want.
@codefolio @4am @swan_pr which is fine, if people want to get paid for providing tutorials or instructions, then that's good for them, if advertising is the mechanism to allow that, then so be it.
@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.
@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.
@keith @codefolio @4am @swan_pr people should get paid for their efforts, but advertising and algorithms negatively impact the quality of what they produce.
@4am @swan_pr :masto_flushed:
You asked for doughy buns, you got doughy buns
@4am @swan_pr
Except now they're also pushing shorts (which is so stupid).
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 :)
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.
It probably disappeared into the ether because it was too short or lacked a backdrop of dried flowers and a cup of tea.
@Nepenthe @Provider @bstix @Anders429 @swan_pr some procedures are easier to understand when you see how it is done. Like changing the battery in the key of a car.
@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!
@swan_pr @Provider @bstix @Anders429 @Nepenthe
I generally don't view them all, just keep searching for a text-only explanation. Even those have a lot of blabbity blab to scroll past.
If I DO launch a vid, i jump through hoping to find the worthwhile part.
@Nepenthe @Provider @bstix @Anders429 Haha, I'm tempted to turn that whole thread into a piece of music with "I HAVE PROJECTS I DO NOT CARE" as the chorus. (I'm hearing it as some sort of electronic hardcore punk.)
If you can pull it off, you have my blessing. Better post it when you're done, though.
@Nepenthe @Provider @bstix @Anders429 that's why I made a 2-minute how to series for the FT-60r. Each video has to show how to do something on the radio in 2 minutes or less.
@Nepenthe @Provider @bstix @Anders429 I need a tutorial to show me how you added bolded text to your post!
I assume it all works the same on mastodon, if it's showing up ok, so:
β’ Bold is 2 asterisks on either side
like ** this **
β’ Italics is either one asterisk on each side like * this * or underscores _ like this _ (does this show up italicized for you?)
β’ 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 @Provider @bstix @Anders429 Thanks for the tips, handy to know!
@Nepenthe @Provider @bstix @Anders429 @alexblock **bold** *italic* ~~strikethrough~~
Does this look MD to you?
@Nepenthe @Provider @bstix @allenstenhaus If you want a written tutorial for weird sewing things, I got you covered. I think I have two. One is for a tiny bag, the other is for fabric artist trading cards :D
Ok, explain. Link me. I've been turning this over in my head. I cannot fathom what "fabric artist trading card" could possibly be