Youtube needs to fix their comment platform.

Youtube has made many of it's content creators very rich. A significant part of their success comes down to the user interaction, through views, shares, likes and comments.

The most subscribed YouTuber of all time, PewDiePie recently removed comments from all his videos. He made a video with his reasons (probably not worth watching, putting it here for reference).

To some, this is a great deal, to many this perhaps has no effect. Either way, it's hard to ignore his 32.1 million subscribers, 6.72 billion views and estimated $10 million net worth. All from commentating over gameplay.

The core issue to him, was that the comment section was of low quality. It was filled with abuse, spam, offensive language and whatever else you could imagine.

He raises a valid point, YouTube comments are horrendous and it has infamous reputation for being bad. Google's attempt at revamping them was also an utter failure.

I put this down to various reasons. I'll discuss the most salient - moderation tools. To think that there is one moderator for millions of views, and thousands of comments is scary. That makes cleaning up inappropriate comments at virtually impossible task. The most effective tool is perhaps the global ban on words or phrases. But that is still limited, and bit old-fashioned. Isn't there a solution?

Give moderators more tools! And perhaps YouTube should allow content producers to add additional moderators! I'm sure there are members of PewDiePie's user base that are dedicated enough to sweeping up the comments. Platforms like reddit allow multiple moderators for its communities, and a greater array of tools for moderators, resulting in a much positive ecosystem. Other platforms need to as well.

Does anyone have some solutions to YouTube comments?

Thoughts on the current commenting landscape

We all browse content online. 

I find myself in the position where after watching an amazing video or reading an interesting article, I'm still curious. What's the reaction? What is the community saying? What are experts saying? 

But to my discontent, I’ll find that there’s no discussion to follow.

Which is strange. It's innately human discuss and debate. Yet it feels so uncomfortable and unnatural on the web.

I’m not the only with this problem. Many others have it too.

I'm sure you can relate. You browse some content and you have a relevant comment but something stops you:

• maybe you don't want to expose your true identity online
• perhaps you don't want to manage another online account, on top of the dozens you already have
• or in most cases, there isn't a comment section! so how can we learn and exchange ideas?!

I call these problems barriers to commenting. We need to reduce these barriers as much as we can!

The Verge loses the marginal user.

Comments are an impulse thing, you experience something and want to react.

I think it's really important to reduce the friction between the moment someone wants to comment and the action of doing so.

I had a not so great experience recently while reading the verge online.

After reading the article and then comments section, I wanted to pass my own comment. 

I don't normally sign up for additional online accounts but I thought I'd try it out. So the registration process was pretty simple: username/ password/ email. 

But after logging in, I was told that I couldn't comment, because they need to verify my account and this would happen in a days time.

As a result, they lost my comment. 

I'm patient user and frequent commenter, so the additional wait is fine for someone like me. 

But to really popularise commenting platforms, you need to make it as easy as possible for the marginal user, for them to experience the magic moment, and for them to contribute. 

But what about all those impatient users that leave at a moments notice. The verge created an unnecessary barrier to commenting that would deter many potential users. The worst thing is that they are unmeasurable! 

If you're interested in the marginal user, watch Lecture 6 of the 'how to start a startup' series. Alex Schulz from Facebook highlights the importance they put on the marginal user rather than just the power user.

Internet trolls face up to two years in jail under new laws

BBC Article

Quadrupling the sentence to combat cyber-bullying?! My instinct tells me that this isn't right . It's an old school approach to a new school problem.

I also disagree with Mr Grayling's reasoning: 

"No-one would permit such venom in person, so there should be no place for it on social media" 

Calling someone a shit in real-life and a shit over an internet connection do not have the same gravity. He implies that that they do.

He assumes that the internet is only an extension of real life, when in reality it is a parallel world.

For the wants and needs that we cannot fulfill in our day to day lives, we turn to the internet to get our fix, to give our opinions and to contribute. Most importantly, we do it in privacy.  

That is exactly why the internet is a great place. 

And surprise, surprise, BBC still has no commenting section. 

@BritishMonarchy

#selfie

The Queen recently 'embraced' the new information age by officially sending her first tweet. 

It came with great reception, and obviously some jokers took advantage of twitter's anonymous feature. 

A lot of silliness ensued including users asking for personal follows and her opinion on this week's X-factor results.

I would say this is harmless fun, and adds to the beauty of twitter's platform. 

But, trolling also arose, with users telling to her abdicate and a few other things I'm not going to mention. 

So how do we approach these symptoms of anonymous platforms on the internet? Do we police or do we accept and move on?

Special thanks to close friend, Joe Clarke for his source! website up soon: www.joeclarke.me (I felt a bit guilty about not citing him). 

Named or nameless?

Comment platforms either use a real name profile or a pseudonym.

Users that use their real profile are held accountable by their reputation - they're more likely to give better comments.

Pseudonyms mask identity, so it's so easy to be offensive with no punishment. Evidently there are people who abuse this.

I argue that we should use a hybrid. By default that users should use a real profile, but give them the option to be anonymous. Just control the number of times they can comment anonymously!

Quora does this pretty well.

To end, a quote from Oscar Wilde:

A man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask and he will tell you the truth. 

The Guardian

So I read an article on the Guardian about a year ago (link at bottom).

This is a great example of how content creators manage their comment platform badly.

Say, if I were to print off the web page, the article would take up 8 pages. The comments section, slapped onto the end of the article, is about 17 pages long. Not a great user experience.

What's more they closed off the comment section after 3 days. I emailed in to ask why. They responded with the following:

I wasn't satisfied with their answer (are you?). Who says that a comment in a week/month/years time isn't relevant? And the 'not spreading resources too thinly' excuse shows how little they value their users.

Nothing's changed and they still do this to this day.

Article

BBC

The BBC used to have a comment section.

It had a few problems, the first that comes to mind is that it was all managed by internal staff.

This is inefficient and a waste of licenses payer's money really.

There must be a better way of moderating discussion.

Now there isn't even a comment board.

It’s a bit ridiculous how the world’s largest broadcasting organisation by employees doesn’t allow the public to discuss their content.

Extra: moderation was either reactive or pre/post comment.