[jeffalo]

> Those in the experiment could still see and use the public dislike button, but because the count was not visible to them, we found that they were less likely to target a video’s dislike button to drive up the count.

I don't understand this part. So, hiding the dislike count means less people will dislike.

Then what's the point of disliking a video? It provides much less feedback to a creator than just commenting, it's more often used as a signal to other viewers. If it's hidden, there's really no point of including it at all. In fact, why not remove likes too? And while we're at it, let's remove the view count too.

This is a really strange change, and I'm not sure that I'm happy about it.

[smitop]

BTW, you appear to be shadowbanned: many of your comments and all but one submission show as [dead] to me (although some of your comments have been vouched for, which unkills them).