MetaFilter YouTube playlist June 12, 2022 11:44 PM Subscribe
From time to time Mrs. Gogue and I will be looking for something new and interesting to watch on YouTube on our Roku. MetaFilter is a great source of interesting videos but it's a little awkward to browse MeFi then jump over to the Roku and search YouTube for the video. What if MetaFilter had a YouTube channel that automatically added videos to the channel whenever a YouTube link is posted to the blue? It would be convenient for multi-person watching. It might also bring in more ad bucks.
I like this pony. Might lead to some serious appropriate-at-work conversations with one’s manager if you weren’t careful with the feed. But yes.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 1:24 AM on June 13, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 1:24 AM on June 13, 2022 [2 favorites]
No idea of how hard or easy it is but I like this idea!
posted by TheophileEscargot at 1:57 AM on June 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by TheophileEscargot at 1:57 AM on June 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
I would love this.
Mefites have great YouTube taste, and I’ve already failed to find videos I know were posted here.
Incidentally, Gogue, has it occurred to you that, if you and Mrs. Gogue happen to have children (or even a beloved pet), you could without fear of rebuke refer to yourselves as 'Gogue and Ma Gogue'?
posted by jamjam at 2:06 AM on June 13, 2022 [4 favorites]
Mefites have great YouTube taste, and I’ve already failed to find videos I know were posted here.
Incidentally, Gogue, has it occurred to you that, if you and Mrs. Gogue happen to have children (or even a beloved pet), you could without fear of rebuke refer to yourselves as 'Gogue and Ma Gogue'?
posted by jamjam at 2:06 AM on June 13, 2022 [4 favorites]
I started this once, got pretty far. I had a script that would scrape a thread and create a list of YouTube links and then download them via yt-dl. I looked into the actual playlist thing and didn't want to go "unofficial MetaFilter channel" on it nor to make my own playlist, nor to chime in that I could probably make a Perl script that would let you create your own personal playlist yourself and then have to explain how to do the YouTube API shuffle thing to get it done. Not to mention everybody scraping MetaFilter pages that way by some thingy I made.
It would also be a bit more involved to say determine which threads with YouTube videos get a playlist, the organization of the playlists, the region blockage, deletions, incrementally updating the playlist for new posts.
Does every thread that has a YouTube get a playlist? I was thinking of making it a tag or something that could be added. Would be much easier to do from the backend side. Oh look, the post has a link to a YouTube playlist, but what about Vimeo, SoundCloud, Bandcamp?
Anyway, I started one. You could probably find it looking back through my comments, I think a couple people (cli nerds) maybe gave it a shot for the "download all the videos" bit. Sorta didn't think it was appropriate/feasible to turn it into a real playlist thing.
I usually figure that MetaFilter doesn't have the staff for such projects, or the desire, or that it would be harder than I would think because of the tech stack the site uses.
posted by zengargoyle at 3:32 AM on June 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
It would also be a bit more involved to say determine which threads with YouTube videos get a playlist, the organization of the playlists, the region blockage, deletions, incrementally updating the playlist for new posts.
Does every thread that has a YouTube get a playlist? I was thinking of making it a tag or something that could be added. Would be much easier to do from the backend side. Oh look, the post has a link to a YouTube playlist, but what about Vimeo, SoundCloud, Bandcamp?
Anyway, I started one. You could probably find it looking back through my comments, I think a couple people (cli nerds) maybe gave it a shot for the "download all the videos" bit. Sorta didn't think it was appropriate/feasible to turn it into a real playlist thing.
I usually figure that MetaFilter doesn't have the staff for such projects, or the desire, or that it would be harder than I would think because of the tech stack the site uses.
posted by zengargoyle at 3:32 AM on June 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
This is a good pony, but I would also like to see it expanded to TikTok.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:33 AM on June 13, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:33 AM on June 13, 2022 [3 favorites]
Let's expand to there is a side-bar of categorized links to playlists of media (and all other links in the posts as Other) as applicable. Good Pony. Now we just need a Pony.
posted by zengargoyle at 6:59 AM on June 13, 2022
posted by zengargoyle at 6:59 AM on June 13, 2022
If it was reposting videos, wouldn't there be an issue of ownership claims?
I think the idea is that it's a playlist of existing YouTube videos. You don't need to own a video to add it to a playlist.
posted by zamboni at 8:54 AM on June 13, 2022 [2 favorites]
I think the idea is that it's a playlist of existing YouTube videos. You don't need to own a video to add it to a playlist.
posted by zamboni at 8:54 AM on June 13, 2022 [2 favorites]
On re-reading, MR is probably responding to the suggestion of collecting TikTok and other media, which I guess would involve reposting.
posted by zamboni at 9:11 AM on June 13, 2022
posted by zamboni at 9:11 AM on June 13, 2022
Okay, not a direct manifestation of the pony here, but it did give me an idea, and I went searching in the bowels of the building for a certain ancient artifact I remembered ... (the building is Metafilter, the bowels are its deepest rumbling innards where the old old old experimental etc. pages lie moldering) and I found a thing that, when asked respectfully in the old language by an acolyte (or even just a mod), will spit out the most popular outgoing links in the last x days, and even break them down by, eg, Youtube, Twitter, and a couple more.
So I'm going to try an experiment right now, and maybe I'll have to take it down immediately, but I'm going to try to put it on the sidebar with the existing html / css coding per items and groups. If that doesn't break the page, this at least can be a regular thing (as long as the Ancient Thing remains amenable). If it turns out that I have to strip and re-format all those items, it's going to be too time-consuming to mess with, though I could hand over the raw stuff if someone else wants to clean it up.
But let's see what happens! There is no preview function for the sidebar interface, so hold on to your peaches, everyone, and let's see what the Cthulhu might arise from the deeps! 3, 2, 1 ...
posted by taz (staff) at 9:49 AM on June 13, 2022 [13 favorites]
So I'm going to try an experiment right now, and maybe I'll have to take it down immediately, but I'm going to try to put it on the sidebar with the existing html / css coding per items and groups. If that doesn't break the page, this at least can be a regular thing (as long as the Ancient Thing remains amenable). If it turns out that I have to strip and re-format all those items, it's going to be too time-consuming to mess with, though I could hand over the raw stuff if someone else wants to clean it up.
But let's see what happens! There is no preview function for the sidebar interface, so hold on to your peaches, everyone, and let's see what the Cthulhu might arise from the deeps! 3, 2, 1 ...
posted by taz (staff) at 9:49 AM on June 13, 2022 [13 favorites]
Holy moly! I can SEE IT! IT'S ALIVE! Thanks taz!
posted by TheophileEscargot at 9:52 AM on June 13, 2022
posted by TheophileEscargot at 9:52 AM on June 13, 2022
lol, it definitely smashed the front page sidebar ... ouch! So I put a link there instead, going to the best of blog. There is one entry that's breaking the page layout there, but altogether, this seems a doable thing, at least! Thank You, O Ancient One! 👾
posted by taz (staff) at 10:00 AM on June 13, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by taz (staff) at 10:00 AM on June 13, 2022 [2 favorites]
Oh wow fun!!!
posted by one4themoment at 10:03 AM on June 13, 2022
posted by one4themoment at 10:03 AM on June 13, 2022
Could this be...monetized somehow for MeFi? I literally do not know but it seems everyone and their mom is making money thru a YouTube channel these days.
posted by tiny frying pan at 10:04 AM on June 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by tiny frying pan at 10:04 AM on June 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
On the popular links thing now up, oddly, a couple of youtube links show up in the "external sites" list instead of the Youtube list. No idea why.
posted by taz (staff) at 10:05 AM on June 13, 2022
posted by taz (staff) at 10:05 AM on June 13, 2022
Also, isn't that a more text version of this?
posted by tiny frying pan at 10:05 AM on June 13, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by tiny frying pan at 10:05 AM on June 13, 2022 [5 favorites]
oooh now that one is getting much closer to what hypnogogue is hoping for!
It's different than what I posted, because my compilation is looking for A) links in comments with B) more than 1 (?) favorites
posted by taz (staff) at 10:11 AM on June 13, 2022
It's different than what I posted, because my compilation is looking for A) links in comments with B) more than 1 (?) favorites
posted by taz (staff) at 10:11 AM on June 13, 2022
It doesn't seem like a lot of youtube links though ... some must be missing? Or maybe not. I'm going to post a youtube link now, and see if the page tiny frying pan links to updates ...
Here's a song I'm liking a lot lately.
posted by taz (staff) at 10:15 AM on June 13, 2022 [2 favorites]
Here's a song I'm liking a lot lately.
posted by taz (staff) at 10:15 AM on June 13, 2022 [2 favorites]
Aaaand, unfortunately I see I was wrong about the most popular links list (now on Best Of) — it's not based on most favorited, it's based on most posted (so posted at least twice). Which is not as good as most favorited. We probably didn't even have favorites when that particular artifact was created. I'll ask frimble how much of a pain in the ass it would be to make it favorites-based instead, but frimbs has so much on their plate, I hate to throw more on there.
posted by taz (staff) at 10:30 AM on June 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by taz (staff) at 10:30 AM on June 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
I'm glad everyone likes my pony! Some thoughts:
1. Yes I meant a playlist not a channel, sorry
2. Going by favs means links in the posts themselves might not get added
3. Sidebar fun and other on-site compilations are great but I'm looking to avoid browsing then searching, by which I also mean avoid getting up off the couch.
posted by hypnogogue at 10:54 AM on June 13, 2022
1. Yes I meant a playlist not a channel, sorry
2. Going by favs means links in the posts themselves might not get added
3. Sidebar fun and other on-site compilations are great but I'm looking to avoid browsing then searching, by which I also mean avoid getting up off the couch.
posted by hypnogogue at 10:54 AM on June 13, 2022
I know! These things aren't meant to be that, but might help to think about how it could be accomplished.
I made a playlist by hand, anyway, just to see how much effort this would take. Pretty fast, actually, if I'm working from this list of youtube links in comments, because the links go directly to youtube, and I can just open them all and pop down the line adding them to the playlist. On this one of youtube links in posts, I'm less grooved about, because they open in their own windows, so they would require opening each one, one by one, then clicking from each over to youtube, then adding to the playlist. Bleh.
posted by taz (staff) at 11:49 AM on June 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
I made a playlist by hand, anyway, just to see how much effort this would take. Pretty fast, actually, if I'm working from this list of youtube links in comments, because the links go directly to youtube, and I can just open them all and pop down the line adding them to the playlist. On this one of youtube links in posts, I'm less grooved about, because they open in their own windows, so they would require opening each one, one by one, then clicking from each over to youtube, then adding to the playlist. Bleh.
posted by taz (staff) at 11:49 AM on June 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
... and I can allow collaborators on that, so if someone wanted to take on the youtube links in posts, i could send you a collab link for that. We're not reddit, it wouldn't be too hard to maintain this fairly reasonably by hand, most of the time.
posted by taz (staff) at 12:01 PM on June 13, 2022
posted by taz (staff) at 12:01 PM on June 13, 2022
Can anyone say if this showing up /accessible? I made it "public," but it's showing zero views.
posted by taz (staff) at 2:10 PM on June 13, 2022
posted by taz (staff) at 2:10 PM on June 13, 2022
Yes see um: Linked in Metafilter
But
11 videos No views Updated today
maybe it takes time to propagate to the view counter?
posted by BobTheScientist at 2:26 PM on June 13, 2022
But
11 videos No views Updated today
maybe it takes time to propagate to the view counter?
posted by BobTheScientist at 2:26 PM on June 13, 2022
If links miss the scanning it could be things like youtu.be links or things with timestamps or having other stuff in the URL like the playlist that they came from.
I would still want a MetaFilter channel as just a place to hold the playlists. And playlists per post (i.e. not just a playlist of every video or just favorited ones). I don't recall just exactly what about the YT API really gave me a bit of pause, some combination of running afoul of the TOS and not wanting to be the account holder.
The rest is pretty simple to automate. Keep a list of posts that get processed, and the time of the last processing. Next run get the comments from since the last time that are in the wanted posts and add them to the right playlist. Repeat. A bit about creating the new playlist when adding it to the list, a bit about removing it when the thread closes.
If you wanted to go the tagging route, just start with fetching open posts with that tag and adding them to the list if not already there. Then just an extra little thing, a way to go back and process closed threads from the past upon request. Just some corner cases.
(I used to do crap tons of this sort of batch processing of events. It's sorta standard template ETL with bells-and-whistles.)
It is nice to see it being brought up again. IIRC back then.... YouTube already had a janky auto-created MetaFilter playlist sort of thing. Probably back in mathowie days.
posted by zengargoyle at 9:41 PM on June 13, 2022
I would still want a MetaFilter channel as just a place to hold the playlists. And playlists per post (i.e. not just a playlist of every video or just favorited ones). I don't recall just exactly what about the YT API really gave me a bit of pause, some combination of running afoul of the TOS and not wanting to be the account holder.
The rest is pretty simple to automate. Keep a list of posts that get processed, and the time of the last processing. Next run get the comments from since the last time that are in the wanted posts and add them to the right playlist. Repeat. A bit about creating the new playlist when adding it to the list, a bit about removing it when the thread closes.
If you wanted to go the tagging route, just start with fetching open posts with that tag and adding them to the list if not already there. Then just an extra little thing, a way to go back and process closed threads from the past upon request. Just some corner cases.
(I used to do crap tons of this sort of batch processing of events. It's sorta standard template ETL with bells-and-whistles.)
It is nice to see it being brought up again. IIRC back then.... YouTube already had a janky auto-created MetaFilter playlist sort of thing. Probably back in mathowie days.
posted by zengargoyle at 9:41 PM on June 13, 2022
This is a good pony, but I would also like to see it expanded to TikTok.
While I'm not opposed to expanding the pony to TikTok, the place I'd really like to see it expanded to is Spotify.
posted by box at 5:20 AM on June 14, 2022 [1 favorite]
While I'm not opposed to expanding the pony to TikTok, the place I'd really like to see it expanded to is Spotify.
posted by box at 5:20 AM on June 14, 2022 [1 favorite]
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posted by taz (staff) at 11:47 PM on June 12, 2022