Youtube's favorites changes

[HalfTangible]

Ya know, Youtube's done a lot of stupid shit over the last few years. Integrating google+, its copyright policies that felt like slash-and-burn tactics more than legitimate attempts at protecting copyright, the removal of the star rating... and personally, I've tolerated it. Nothing worth getting upset over for me. The copyright policies were disgusting, sure, but I didn't personally have any videos. The comment system sucked, but at least we didn't have to listen to people talk as much (Youtube's comment section is still a cesspit but much less of one). The removal of star ratings and layout changes was also annoying, but the like/dislike system works decently. However, there's a level of insanity in their most recent change that I can scarcely believe. It's like youtube WANTS to fade into hopeless obscurity. As such, I am going to hope to God that this is something that only I am going through, and that no one else is actually having this problem: I can no longer add favorite videos.

No, seriously.

And yes, I checked, the new videos i've tried to add are not videos I've seen before or added before.

I can hit that 'add to' and then 'favorites' thing (that ticks me off but still works) but then when I go to look at my favorites, they're not actually added to favorites. In fact, someone apparently decided to go to town on my favorites playlist, as there's now only 100 videos there when I had a few hundred before. And my liked videos, while able to add new videos, are now stuck at 100.

...

Years worth of videos, now gone.

...

And I can't add any more, either.

...

WHY?!?!

Why would you bloody do this?! Why would you make it a 100 times more difficult for us to find videos we like?! WHAT THE HELL, YOUTUBE?!

"The redesign to YouTube?s web pages is supposed to make them feel ?similar to the mobile apps you?re spending almost half your YouTube time with,? YouTube web developer Yining Zhao said in a blog post announcing the change."

...Ah ha.

Ha.

Ha.

Fuckin'. HA.

*twitch*

You neutered the favorite/liked videos system so you could put in a (frankly butt-fugly) centered layout?! ARE YOU HIGH?!?! Just... NO! This is the biggest encouragement I've yet seen to go to any site BUT youtube! Please, for the love of god, tell me i'm the only person going through this and it's something that'll clear up soon. Because fucking hell, guys!!!

Ugh... Rant over. Am I the only one? Please say yes.

 

[Esotera]

I quite like the new changes, but can't for the life of me understand why the menubar doesn't show all subscribed channels, or have some way to pick which ones show up. I only watch a couple of channels regularly so it doesn't make sense to list literally all of them.

Also there should be some sort of option to automatically expand the menubar regardless of the window size. Some of us like watching youtube on half the screen & browsing the internet simultaneously on the other half...

 

[Vicarious Reality]

WEll, i was wondering what happened to my favourites... 3500 videos, probably never to be seen by me again
Good job, good job google

I also noticed how they are slowly making it more and more difficult to actually see peoples video page

 

[ohnoitsabear]

I just like how they made the player centered again. That was probably the worst layout change they ever did, and I am so glad they've finally changed it back.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

I also noticed how they are slowly making it more and more difficult to actually see peoples video page

YES! I've noticed this, and it annoys the hell out of me.

Instead of showing all the videos on someone's subscription page when you select their "videos" it shows a measly 4 most recent, along with several other unwanted video selections ("favourited" videos and "recent activity" or some nonsense). So you then have to either click on "recent uploads" to load up all of the person's videos (this used to be the default option, and no sane website designer would have changed it from that) or you can use the tiny button at the corner of the last clip that changes shape when you hover your mouse over it - just to make it super awkward to use! to activate a horrendous horizontal scroll bar to show you their videos 4 at a time.

HORIZONTAL SCROLLING IS BOLLOCKS! STOP PUTTING IT ON COMPUTERS!

And even then the glorious webdesigner decided to cap his wonderful horizontal scrolling madness after about 12 videos, so if you somehow decided to use this idiotic system to backtrack through the user's video list 4 at a time instead of just loading them all at once, you are stopped after the 3rd or 4th click and the next option is to load into the standard full video list: Completely removing the point of implementing that awful system in the first place. I have never experienced a more ass-backward user-unfriendly completely unnecessary interface.

Are all UI designers paid in crystal meth nowadays, or what on earth is going on with our modern menu systems that everything is just getting so much worse? Windows 8 is a nightmare to navigate. Facebook is really bizarre now, Youtube keep stripping back useful features while adding useless Google+ integration, the latest Microsoft Office suite burns your eyes out because there are no background colours apart from Phosphorous White and Phosphorous White with a touch of Grey.

/rant

 

[Riverwolf]

Every time they make a change, they make it gradually worse. The new layout is absolutely horrible, especially if you have a somewhat slow or unreliable internet with no power to make it better.

This is one of the reasons why Youtube is the ONLY Google service I use (I don't even use their search engine), and the only reason for that is because I have so much invested in it, and I love watching videos that won't be anywhere else.

At least until someone comes up with a new video-hosting site that somehow can have compatibility with youtube videos along with its own library.

 

[The_Echo]

I don't see why this update needed to happen. It literally added nothing; all it does is bloat every asset so it takes up more of the screen. It looks like it was designed for tablets. But on a PC, it just plain doesn't work.

By the way, is anyone else having trouble watching videos under one minute in length?

The player won't even load for me.

 

[War Penguin]

Whoa whoa whoa! Okay... Okay... Okay... I think I know how to get back your old favorite vids... I THINK!

Okay, so I had the same problem you did, just 100 favorite videos listed. Then I clicked on "Advanced editing" and lo and behold they were back, just on a separate page. Then I decided to add a new favorite video. Didn't see it up top. Apparently, the new favorite videos start off at the very bottom of the list... for some reason. So, that should hopefully get you back your favorite videos. Hopefully.

WEll, i was wondering what happened to my favourites... 3500 videos, probably never to be seen by me again
Good job, good job google

I also noticed how they are slowly making it more and more difficult to actually see peoples video page

Quoted just to get your attention. Hopefully the above will work. I really hope so.

OT: I think it's just one of those kinks that come with [small](needless)[/small] updates. It's probably not as bad as it actually is, but still, I don't like it either.

I'm just waiting until someone makes a better video hosting site where everyone will migrate to. Then YouTube will slowly die and look back on the poor decisions it made in its life. And it will be glorious.

Also, while it may be a tad old, this just sums up my feelings perfectly:

 

[Revenge Revisited]

I quite like the new changes, but can't for the life of me understand why the menubar doesn't show all subscribed channels, or have some way to pick which ones show up. I only watch a couple of channels regularly so it doesn't make sense to list literally all of them.

Also there should be some sort of option to automatically expand the menubar regardless of the window size. Some of us like watching youtube on half the screen & browsing the internet simultaneously on the other half...

actually, the new favorites are added to the bottom of the list. go to your favorites page and keep clicking on the "load more" button on the bottom of the list, and keep scrolling down. depending on how many favs u have, it could take a few clicks to get all the way to the bottom. i have no idea why they dont just add the new favs to the top of the list instead.

EDIT: sorry for the double post, i quoted the wrong person

 

[Revenge Revisited]

Ya know, Youtube's done a lot of stupid shit over the last few years. Integrating google+, its copyright policies that felt like slash-and-burn tactics more than legitimate attempts at protecting copyright, the removal of the star rating... and personally, I've tolerated it. Nothing worth getting upset over for me. The copyright policies were disgusting, sure, but I didn't personally have any videos. The comment system sucked, but at least we didn't have to listen to people talk as much (Youtube's comment section is still a cesspit but much less of one). The removal of star ratings and layout changes was also annoying, but the like/dislike system works decently. However, there's a level of insanity in their most recent change that I can scarcely believe. It's like youtube WANTS to fade into hopeless obscurity. As such, I am going to hope to God that this is something that only I am going through, and that no one else is actually having this problem: I can no longer add favorite videos.

No, seriously.

And yes, I checked, the new videos i've tried to add are not videos I've seen before or added before.

I can hit that 'add to' and then 'favorites' thing (that ticks me off but still works) but then when I go to look at my favorites, they're not actually added to favorites. In fact, someone apparently decided to go to town on my favorites playlist, as there's now only 100 videos there when I had a few hundred before. And my liked videos, while able to add new videos, are now stuck at 100.

...

Years worth of videos, now gone.

...

And I can't add any more, either.

...

WHY?!?!

Why would you bloody do this?! Why would you make it a 100 times more difficult for us to find videos we like?! WHAT THE HELL, YOUTUBE?!

"The redesign to YouTube?s web pages is supposed to make them feel ?similar to the mobile apps you?re spending almost half your YouTube time with,? YouTube web developer Yining Zhao said in a blog post announcing the change."

...Ah ha.

Ha.

Ha.

Fuckin'. HA.

*twitch*

You neutered the favorite/liked videos system so you could put in a (frankly butt-fugly) centered layout?! ARE YOU HIGH?!?! Just... NO! This is the biggest encouragement I've yet seen to go to any site BUT youtube! Please, for the love of god, tell me i'm the only person going through this and it's something that'll clear up soon. Because fucking hell, guys!!!

Ugh... Rant over. Am I the only one? Please say yes.

GAH sorry wrong quote, heres the actual thing:

actually, the new favorites are added to the bottom of the list. go to your favorites page and keep clicking on the "load more" button on the bottom of the list, and keep scrolling down. depending on how many favs u have, it could take a few clicks to get all the way to the bottom. i have no idea why they dont just add the new favs to the top of the list instead.

 

[Robot Number V]

Actually, I like most of the changes. ( Although I can't add any new favorite videos, either. I can still access my old list, though) There are three exceptions to this, and I really fucking hate them.

1. The fact that the "What to watch" page is basically useless. It routinely puts up videos put up days ago by channels I barely ever watch, while completely ignoring new videos from my most used channels. The "My subscriptions" tab is a nice idea, but the arrangement of videos is needlessly less usable than the "what to watch" tab. Why the fuck can't I have a page that's LIKE "what to watch", except with ALL recent activity from ALL my subscriptions? Also, it bugs the hell out of me that the totally useless "recommended videos" section is more likely to appear than videos from channels I'm FUCKING ALREADY SUBSCRIBED TO.

2. I used to be able to just scroll through a list of my subscriptions. Now, it randomly puts 7 of them in a list, and I have to hover my curser over a button in order to bring up the whole list. HOW. THE FUCK. IS THAT BETTER???!!!!

3. This is actually from the last update and not the most recent one, but it still annoys the shit out of me. Before, there was a little speech box button that turned off all annotations with a single click. Now, that option has been moved into the "settings" tab, which means it takes 2 clicks. Video quality, which formerly took 2 clicks to adjust, now takes three. There is literally NOTHING gained from this. It just made everything slightly more complicated for no fucking reason.

4. This was added years ago, and it doesn't actually bother me, so much as confuse me. What the hell is the purpose of the "Watch later" button? Does anyone actually use this? Why is it considered more important than video quality and annotation settings?

 

[AustinN]

When I saw the latest changes, my first thought was "Did somebody bet Google that they can't screw up Youtube worse than they already have?"

I mean, effing up this consistently seems like it should defy statistical probability.

Also, floating toolbars are horrible and any site that uses them should die.

 

[waj9876]

In your favorites list, if you hit "Advanced Options" it'll take you to your real favorites list. All of your favorites are still there.

 

[Best of the 3]

The favourites list oddities are here for me as well, but if they're just bugs and get fixed, then I don't really mind these changes all that much. Also there seems to be options to move videos to the top/bottom of the list when you click the "more" tab which appears when you hover over one of the videos in your favourites list, however this doesn't appear to work. If it's not fixed, I can see this getting really annoying really fast.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Yep, there is a reason why I only use youtube to watch Totalbiscuit these days instead of doing random search binges for fun.

Screw Google.

 

[HalfTangible]

Ya know, Youtube's done a lot of stupid shit over the last few years. Integrating google+, its copyright policies that felt like slash-and-burn tactics more than legitimate attempts at protecting copyright, the removal of the star rating... and personally, I've tolerated it. Nothing worth getting upset over for me. The copyright policies were disgusting, sure, but I didn't personally have any videos. The comment system sucked, but at least we didn't have to listen to people talk as much (Youtube's comment section is still a cesspit but much less of one). The removal of star ratings and layout changes was also annoying, but the like/dislike system works decently. However, there's a level of insanity in their most recent change that I can scarcely believe. It's like youtube WANTS to fade into hopeless obscurity. As such, I am going to hope to God that this is something that only I am going through, and that no one else is actually having this problem: I can no longer add favorite videos.

No, seriously.

And yes, I checked, the new videos i've tried to add are not videos I've seen before or added before.

I can hit that 'add to' and then 'favorites' thing (that ticks me off but still works) but then when I go to look at my favorites, they're not actually added to favorites. In fact, someone apparently decided to go to town on my favorites playlist, as there's now only 100 videos there when I had a few hundred before. And my liked videos, while able to add new videos, are now stuck at 100.

...

Years worth of videos, now gone.

...

And I can't add any more, either.

...

WHY?!?!

Why would you bloody do this?! Why would you make it a 100 times more difficult for us to find videos we like?! WHAT THE HELL, YOUTUBE?!

"The redesign to YouTube?s web pages is supposed to make them feel ?similar to the mobile apps you?re spending almost half your YouTube time with,? YouTube web developer Yining Zhao said in a blog post announcing the change."

...Ah ha.

Ha.

Ha.

Fuckin'. HA.

*twitch*

You neutered the favorite/liked videos system so you could put in a (frankly butt-fugly) centered layout?! ARE YOU HIGH?!?! Just... NO! This is the biggest encouragement I've yet seen to go to any site BUT youtube! Please, for the love of god, tell me i'm the only person going through this and it's something that'll clear up soon. Because fucking hell, guys!!!

Ugh... Rant over. Am I the only one? Please say yes.

GAH sorry wrong quote, heres the actual thing:

actually, the new favorites are added to the bottom of the list. go to your favorites page and keep clicking on the "load more" button on the bottom of the list, and keep scrolling down. depending on how many favs u have, it could take a few clicks to get all the way to the bottom. i have no idea why they dont just add the new favs to the top of the list instead.

I would call this a stupid decision on youtube's part too, except that here's no 'load more' button. To wit:

http://i801.photobucket.com/albums/yy293/HalfTangible/Towit_zpsb3b5ba45.png

EDIT: okay, now I'm really confused. When you navigate your favorites by way of that side list next to the video, it works fine, but the numbers given are based on their location in the list, instead of the order added to favorites. It makes no sense.

 

[doggy go 7]

The Youtube experience just gets better and better! Making videos full-screen now does this!

Spoiler: This is a screenshot of my whole screen.

I think it's a problem with my settings because doing it in an incognito window works fine.

To get rid of that, all you've got to do is move your cursor all the way to the side (I think), which is arse backwards stupid, but then again everything youtube has done recently is fucking stupid

 

[doggydaddydaycare]

After 30 minutes I just figured out how to get my old favorites back. None of the methods listed above worked for me. I couldn't find an "Advanced Options" link as mentioned above. I think this goes back to youtube trying to get people to stop using their account under a name that isn't their real name, ie. the name associated with their gmail account, or made up handle.

All of my favorites are still under my old account name which was just the user name portion of my gmail address. I think at some point I got tired of those popups from youtube asking if I wanted to change my youtube account name to my real name and gave in and clicked ok because I now have two channels, one of which is my old account name and one is my real name and therein lay the problem for me not finding my old favorites.

Go to your Account Settings here: http://www.youtube.com/account. Click Overview, then click the link that says "See all my channels or create a new channel". On the page that link goes to I found a link to my old account name and all of my favorites were there.

Hope this helps someone else...

 

[NeutralDrow]

Wait, did something happen? I didn't notice any changes recently. I still add favorites via the "Add to" tab, and nothing has changed in my list. Or is it something you need to be connected to Google+ to see?