[oriki]

This. I find that the vast majority of cases where I'd pay any attention to the dislike bar are just cases where people are getting dogpiled for whatever reason (whether they deserve it or not, or if anyone deserves to be treated like that on the internet, is another matter entirely) but I've heard reasonable arguments from people talking about tutorials and other informative videos that the like:dislike ratio is a convenient sniff test for if the video is worth watching.

[jjoonathan]

Clickbait is bad enough without removing one of the last few tools left in the arsenal to fight it.

[oriki]

I feel like we have different definitions as to what clickbait is - when I see a clickbait video, I can simply identify it by it's title and thumbnail, I've never needed to look at the like:dislike ratio to confirm that it's clickbait. What kind of videos do you find as clickbait?

[jjoonathan]

An interview where they spend 30 minutes off-subject and 1 minute on-subject. A tutorial with 10 minutes of detailed explanation and a "now draw the owl" step buried 3/4 of the way through. A thumbnail that promises a level of complexity, sophistication, or accomplishment that winds up never actually happening in the video.

Content farms aren't the only ones in the clickbait game these days.