Thumbs down spammer

[Major Slack]

I'm being stalked by a thumbs down spammer. He/she has been doing it for a couple of years now. This sick individual gets some kind of psychotic cheap thrill out of spamming batches of my videos with about 8-10 thumbs down each. They continue to do it even though I have ratings disabled which I find astonishing since they can't even enjoy their 'handiwork'. They really really hate me.

I have a couple of questions.

1. First, is there any way you can see the ratings on a video even if the ratings are disabled?

2. I've heard any kind of interaction with your videos is good, even thumbs down, but what I'm more concerned about is this individual lowering the retention rate on my videos since to spam my videos with thumbs down, he's obviously not watching the videos to the end, but rather just quickly loading and exiting the video using a bunch of sock puppet accounts (I'm presuming). Should I be concerned about the retention rate on my videos getting sabotaged like this?

3. Is there another automated way of spamming a video with thumbs down that I'm not aware of?

By the way, I know these dislikes are all coming from the same person because I check the geography stats of my Dislikes in Youtube Analytics. They all come from the same remote country. Stands out like a sore thumb.

Any feedback on this situation would be appreciated.

 

[SpaceAlex]

I really don't think there is much you can do about it.. But hey I could be wrong

 

[iMatte]

Well looking at your videos, I can't see the ratio of likes to dislikes, but if you have enough likes to over power the dislikes, then I would think it would be okay to enable ratings. I'm also pretty sure there's no way for me to see the ratings.

Yes, I'm pretty sure it's true it doesn't matter if it it's a thumbs down or thumbs up, it still counts as engagement which can actually help your channel. However, I think psychologically speaking, getting that amount of thumbs down and such can be extremely discouraging. Honestly, I find it sad that this person is doing this. Like he/she is going out of their way to give you dislikes as if they don't have anything better to do with their time. Haters gonna hate.... Not much you can do.

You could ask your viewers for thumbs up which could counteract the thumbs down other than that there's not much you can do to combat this person.

 

[Miketastic]

Take it like a man!

 

[Major Slack]

Well looking at your videos, I can't see the ratio of likes to dislikes, but if you have enough likes to over power the dislikes, then I would think it would be okay to enable ratings. I'm also pretty sure there's no way for me to see the ratings.

Yes, I'm pretty sure it's true it doesn't matter if it it's a thumbs down or thumbs up, it still counts as engagement which can actually help your channel. However, I think psychologically speaking, getting that amount of thumbs down and such can be extremely discouraging. Honestly, I find it sad that this person is doing this. Like he/she is going out of their way to give you dislikes as if they don't have anything better to do with their time. Haters gonna hate.... Not much you can do.

You could ask your viewers for thumbs up which could counteract the thumbs down other than that there's not much you can do to combat this person.

Thanks for your reply. Yes it is sad and pathetic that this person spends so much time over the years just trying to get back at me. It's insane.

I should have mentioned that they are no longer attacking my main channel but have moved on to a smaller channel that I recently started (with about 2K subs). They are truly stalking me.

But I don't care at all about the thumbs down. I just care about whether repeatedly reloading my videos just to give them a thumbs down can impact my retention rating.

 

[Miketastic]

lol.. If you're going to make a habit of making childish trolling replies like this, you should always follow them with a smiley face. That way, if you ever go too far, you can just backpedal and claim you were just kidding.

Just a little friendly advice...

Seriously dude... I have a GTA 5 review video that has over 100 thumbs down and a lot of negative feedback. But I'm perfectly fine with that because they're all from different viewers and it's all genuine.

Just like here, take it like a man. :^)

 

[WilliamRayWalters]

But I don't care at all about the thumbs down.

Well, if he's thumbing you down even with ratings off, and you don't care about thumbs down, then why remove the ratings at all? Let him thumb it down. If someone asks about it you can explain it, but other than that, what can you do? The fact that you removed ratings validates his behavior. He's gotten you to change something. He knows that it's bothering you on some level (he's probably reading this thread as we speak...from across the street in that car while stealing your wifi). Your best bet is to leave ratings up and ignore the thumbs down completely.

Having ratings turned off always makes me think it's because a guy has a lot of dislikes anyway, so it's not as if it helps with public perception.

Good luck with your channel.

 

[Major Slack]

Well, if he's thumbing you down even with ratings off, and you don't care about thumbs down, then why remove the ratings at all? Let him thumb it down. If someone asks about it you can explain it, but other than that, what can you do? The fact that you removed ratings validates his behavior. He's gotten you to change something. He knows that it's bothering you on some level (he's probably reading this thread as we speak...from across the street in that car while stealing your wifi). Your best bet is to leave ratings up and ignore the thumbs down completely.

Having ratings turned off always makes me think it's because a guy has a lot of dislikes anyway, so it's not as if it helps with public perception.

Good luck with your channel.

Thank you for your reply.

Actually, when I started hiding the ratings, his thumbs down spamming subsided on my main channel and moved over to my new channel. Also, before I started hiding ratings, when viewers talked about the dislike spamming (dedicated viewers showing their support) it validated his behaviour even more. The spamming always became more determined immediately following some kind of conversation about the spamming.

And I guess you've never heard of 4chan raids? Because when I see someone with their ratings hidden nowadays, that's the first thing I think of. This channel was a victim of a 4chan raid. 4chan raids thrive on actually seeing the dislike counter rise in real time. I believe this is why Youtube changed the setting regarding likes/dislikes from disabling ratings to hiding ratings. That way people can still rate the video (and Youtube can use that interaction to measure a video's popularity) but people can no longer organize 'raids' to artificially inflate a video's ratings. Or rather, people are strongly deterred from organizing dislike raids because there's nothing in it for them anymore.

Here, once again, the real damage I believe is all the aberrant traffic sent to the video which I think may impact the video's retention rating. I'd like to reiterate that this is what I'd truly like to discuss. Not the dislikes but rather the bad traffic resulting from this kind of behaviour.

 

[WilliamRayWalters]

Actually, when I started hiding the ratings, his thumbs down spamming subsided on my main channel

They continue to do it even though I have ratings disabled

I can only go by what you're telling me.

Also, before I started hiding ratings, when viewers talked about the dislike spamming (dedicated viewers showing their support) it validated his behaviour even more.

I just personally wouldn't let a hater dictate how I run my channel.

Or rather, people are strongly deterred from organizing dislike raids because there's nothing in it for them anymore.

Unless they know that they are still being counted and that you can still see them, which they probably do.

Here, once again, the real damage I believe is all the aberrant traffic sent to the video which I think may impact the video's retention rating. I'd like to reiterate that this is what I'd truly like to discuss. Not the dislikes but rather the bad traffic resulting from this kind of behaviour.

Well, if someone organizes a mass dislike campaign against you, of course it can have a negative impact on your retention. If it's just one guy, then it's just one view per video per whatever time period that he can affect, and even then I would like to believe that Youtube's algorithms can detect this type of nefarious behavior and take it into account when ranking.[DOUBLEPOST=1442955689,1442955051][/DOUBLEPOST]

1. First, is there any way you can see the ratings on a video even if the ratings are disabled?

Yes, you can. I just added the 'ratings preview' extension on chrome and it allows you to see the likes/dislikes of videos that have ratings hidden. That's pretty messed up. Hopefully Youtube fixes that.

 

[Major Slack]

I can only go by what you're telling me.

He started on my main channel. I hid ratings. He stopped and then later moved over to my new smaller channel where I didn't have ratings hidden. Started up again. I hid ratings. He stopped. Recently he started up again on the smaller channel even though all my videos have ratings hidden.

Unless they know that they are still being counted and that you can still see them, which they probably do.

Doesn't matter. I've monitored the comments of a 4chan dislike raid on one of my videos and they immediately lose interest when you hide ratings. It is truly all about seeing the damage they're doing in real time. They get a sick thrill out of it and make regular reports back to the raid thread bragging about their success. Take the dislike counter away and they stop dead and within minutes move on to attack another Youtuber.

Well, if someone organizes a mass dislike campaign against you, of course it can have a negative impact on your retention. If it's just one guy, then it's just one view per video per whatever time period that he can affect, and even then I would like to believe that Youtube's algorithms can detect this type of nefarious behavior and take it into account when ranking.

One guy using 10 different accounts. 10 one second duration views, just long enough to click thumbs down and do it again with another account. And yes this is exactly what I was asking and that is if anyone knew for sure if Youtube can detect this kind of nefarious behaviour. And seeing how poorly they handle fraudulent content ID claims, I have my doubts but I could be wrong.

Yes, you can. I just added the 'ratings preview' extension on chrome and it allows you to see the likes/dislikes of videos that have ratings hidden. That's pretty messed up. Hopefully Youtube fixes that.

Bingo. Thank you for finding that out. That explains a lot.