YouTube Comments Get a Makeover From Google

[JediMB]

Well, the comments system has been broken for ages now, so I'm fine with it being changed. I welcome it, in fact.

For starters, it would be nice if it was actually possible to hold decent discussions on popular videos.

EDIT: I don't use Google+, though, so I have no idea to what extent it would affect me. We'll see.

 

[Mr. Q]

YouTube, Google, you want to make things better? Here is a short list:

1) Try adding tighter restrictions on comments, especially on spammers and douche-bags.

2) How about bringing back buffer for those with less stellar online connections. Getting sick and tired of having to fiddle with the quality that won't stick to what you selected.

2) STOP TRYING TO FORCE GOOGLE+ ON US, DAMMIT! THAT SHIT FUCKS UP MY ACCOUNT BIG TIME AND I DON'T WANT TO USE MY REAL NAME FOR ANYTHING!

If I missed anything, feel free to add something. -_-

 

[Aeshi]

Because if there's one thing Youtube needs more of, it's useless crap nobody asked for.

How about fixing the bug that causes videos to freeze while their audio continues? Or the bug that sometimes causes videos to shorten and end early while you're watching them? Or something else that'd actually be useful?

 

[Skeleon]

Gaah, who cares about the comments' popularity? Idiots up- and down-voting comments is not a fair measure to decide which comments should be at the top. And I really couldn't care less about "popular personalities", either. Popular for what and in what sense? Having lots of subscribers? Having lots of views? As for Google+ contacts... I don't use it. I only have a bare skeleton-account for my Android. Man. I hate this kind of thing. I like it when they give people options to use their social media bullshit, but some of us just don't care. Why are we forced onto the bandwagon? :-(

EDIT:

How about fixing the bug that causes videos to freeze while their audio continues? Or the bug that sometimes causes videos to shorten and end early while you're watching them? Or something else that'd actually be useful.

Oh, yeah, the freezing. Had that plenty of times. Another bug that I still haven't managed to work around is the wrong display in the inbox. I know it's minor, but I really don't have 7 unread comments. I swear!

 

[Micalas]

Maybe they think "shut up ****** nwo Ron Paul 20XX" IS meaningful conversation.

But without youtube comments how could I know who's a ****** and why? This is pertinent to my existence.

 

[FPLOON]

With changes like these, I'm just waiting til YouTube becomes another forum I lurk use... only I would have to praise all of the channels that have reached passed the 1M+ mark... and not the ones that are still in the "K+" mark that I appreciate more than most of the 1M+ users... (Key word "most", mind you...)


...or maybe I should wait until you have no choice but to have Google+ in order to do anything YouTube related... (I think that option seems like the most believable in context...)

 

[Kmadden2004]

Y'know, the other day I was pretty much forced by YouTube to set up a Google+ account.

The next day the number of junk e-mails in my spam folder went up from 4 to 27 (it's currently sitting at 34).

Thanks, Google.

 

[Something Amyss]

So their official stance is "unintentionally working as intended"?

Considering the "Send feedback" link is how I initiated all this, they're just leading me in circles now.

Well, that sounds about right. They want you to use your real name and they give you an option, but they're going to hassle you over it.

GODDAMMIT YOUTUBE STOP CHANGING EVERYTHING!!!!

Or maybe start changing some things that are broken.

Like the frequency of unexpected errors and failures to load videos. Or uploading problems. Or settings not saving. Or The fact that captions keep randomly getting turned on videos. Quality issues.

Or hell, howabout a way to actually deal with abusive people? Not people who disagree with you, but who are actually abusive? Marking as spam doesn't count. Downvoting also doesn't count.

I also hate the way Gmail can't make up its mind where to put notifications about YouTube. Since they're both Google, I feel this is relevant.

But without youtube comments how could I know who's a ****** and why? This is pertinent to my existence.

Trust me, they will find a way to let you know. It's one thing Google seems to be completely okay with. Calling people faggots and rape/death threats seem to be cool with the Google team. Because yes, both lead to meaningful conversation.

 

[Something Amyss]

While I would agree with you any day, I cannot when it comes to YouTube. At least not without lying to myself.
I'm all for anonymity on the internet (thanks USA for Prism btw.), but the YouTube comment section is one of the places that actually suffer from it. There's a reason why it has its incredibly bad image and part of it comes from the fact that people can be the biggest assholes towards others without any consequences (in 99% of the cases).

I'd say lack of moderation is a bigger issue than lack of real names.

 

[Something Amyss]

Having real names is about prevention, while moderation is about dealing with the alerady existant problem. I think having proper moderation would be the first thing to do though. It hasn't privacy problems attached to it.

Real names won't prevent anything. For one, there's a lot of shit already coming out of people with real names on there. You could argue that they're fake names, but that leads to the other point. I think my real name on MSN/Windows Live/Whatever they call it is still listed as Squeegee Beckenheim, and a couple of places I have given my real name as Zachary Amaranth[footnote]Spoilers: it's not[/footnote].

Unless YouTube/Google is set to go much further than just linking you to a Google account, then nothing's going to change, nothing's going to be prevented. YouTube encourages sociopathy, and real names won't change that. Especially if they're only "real names."

Edit: I'll just point out something I pointed out a month or two ago in one of those threads about threatening people on the internet.

A while back, someone threatened to rape and kill my mother on Facebook. Guess what Facebook did about this.

If you answered nothing, congratulations.

Now, not only does this guy use his real name, but had identifying info all over his Facebook page. It didn't stop him at all.

Am I expected to think it'll be different because Google does it on YouTube?

 

[KeyMaster45]

A while back, someone threatened to rape and kill my mother on Facebook. Guess what Facebook did about this.

If you answered nothing, congratulations.

Oh, I answered "nothing"! Does that mean I win a prize?!

OT:Ah YouTube. Once upon a time Google had it's own "internet video service", or w/e the corporate bobs are calling it these days, called Google Video; it was a pretty shit "internet video service". Then, one day, Google bought YouTube for oodles of money, and since then they have dedicated every ounce of their resources to turning YouTube into Google Video. And that is how YouTube became the abomination it is today.

 

[jollybarracuda]

This actually sounds pretty damn good to me. Religious arguments and My Little Pony are of no interest to me, so if this new organization of comments system ends up with me seeing more comments about the video and less about useless drivel, then I could care less about the order in which they show up.

 

[Smooth Operator]

We will see how it works, knowing Youtube it probably won't work for another week after changing over and until then they will have 3 new interfaces that work even less.

But anyway there was dire need of change, I would have preffered a simple Ignore feature but this is fine too.

 

[Andrew_C]

So their official stance is "unintentionally working as intended"?

Considering the "Send feedback" link is how I initiated all this, they're just leading me in circles now.

You are fairly lucky, they deleted the contents of my Youtube account when I told them to shove their google+ where it don't shine. Apparently their systems couldn't cope with the idea of someone with a Youtube account who had disabled google+. After much useless back and forth with google tech support, someone on the Youtube support group on Google Groups suggested trying a rather complex procedure, which eventually worked, but only after trying it in Internet Explorer 10.

Not that there was anything of value that would have been lost if I couldn't restore my Youtube account, it was the principle that mattered.

 

[LegendaryVKickr]

Google seriously, stop. Just stop!! Nobody I know even uses Google+, including one of my cousins, who used to work for your company!! You're not gonna get me to start using it, I don't even like using Facebook anymore, because they kept changing stuff up like this!

Uggh, Google+ is possibly the worst thing that has happened to Youtube. As somebody who has gotten a strike on my account on my account for "harassment" because I disagreed with somebody, I don't have any faith whatsoever in Youtube comments. The fact they're calling it a means of "thoughtful discussion" and "community" honestly made me choke on my lunch just now.

Google, are you seriously this out of touch with reality?

 

[Poetic Nova]

If only htey reverted it back to the layout set in 2010 that would be great.
And instead of fixing numerous errors they give us another pointless update...

 

[Yuuki]

I'm dreading this change - not because I think it's bad, but because 95% of the "changes" that have happened over the last 1-2 years to Youtube have fucking pissed me off and made my experience worse. I'm all for change when change is needed (or improves things), but Youtube has just gone more and more backwards.

Videos take forever to buffer and it instant-seeking is gone thanks to videos no longer buffering into your temp cache files. Now videos have to re-buffer from scratch even if you are seeking to a part WHICH YOU'VE ALREADY SEEN.

The UI has been fucked, it now takes twice the number of clicks to change player-size, change resolution and toggle annotations. I could do all that with single clicks, but no more.

At this rate Google is basically pulling a Facebook - "we provide you a free service, so shut the fuck up and deal with these asinine changes".

I sincerely miss Youtube from 2009-2011.

I'd say lack of moderation is a bigger issue than lack of real names.

Moderation is left up to the channel/video owner, as it would be nothing short of a colossal waste of resources if Google was to moderate all 87912451 comments posted every minute.

 

[Moth_Monk]

They need to fix the Not Spam button first, ffs.

 

[Charli]

Awww you mean I'll have to TYPE 'noob cock gobble muncher' to get the kind of intellectual discussions that youtube is currently famous for? That's so much work...

They abused the system before, they'll do it again, this is just youtube trying to 'innovate' for the sake of someone keeping their job.

 

[Idlemessiah]

Hmm, it'd be nice if they gave us an option in account settings for turning comments off. My internet is crap and it'll spend ages loading all the comments and avatar pictures when it's supposed to be loading the video.

Also, bring back buffering! Even in 144p my phone line struggles to fit the whole video down in one go resulting in blurry, stuttery, pause ridden shite. I don't mind going and making a coffee while the video buffers. It's what I do here on the Escapist and that all works fine with me.

Here you go;
http://www.youtube.com/feather_beta

This should help with the unnecessary loading of data.

Well it isn't perfect but it's a ton better than what I'm used to and I now have no choice but to ignore the lowest pit of human discourse that is the youtube comments section, not that I'm complaining about that! Thank you very much you internet samaritan