About time YouTube cleared up their act..

NiallB

Azari wrote: »

Brilliant!

Thanks.

The only quibble I'd have is that he seems to have overrated the intelligence of the typical responder.

...and they have a tendency to spell it 'MORANS'

Scarpacci

Unfortunately, for a site that size and with so many comments, it's practically impossible to moderate comments pro-actively. If Google can't get a machine to do a pretty good job of a task, they simply won't do it. Moderating comments, in dozens of languages, is that sort of task that computer aren't up for.

While it's not quite all or nothing, there's not much more than can realistically be done about the idiotic comments.

kipperman

As a Science teacher I use youtube clips frequently: Even for very inane subjects one has to be very careful to make sure the clip is shown without the comments being visible.........

StevieJ

Yahoo, is as bad, any story on there seems to followed by a tirade of vitriolic comments.

arcon5

Scarpacci wrote: »

Unfortunately, for a site that size and with so many comments, it's practically impossible to moderate comments pro-actively. If Google can't get a machine to do a pretty good job of a task, they simply won't do it. Moderating comments, in dozens of languages, is that sort of task that computer aren't up for.

While it's not quite all or nothing, there's not much more than can realistically be done about the idiotic comments.

It would be challenging, but not impossible. Look at shear size of Wikipedia, yet they manage to keep the content clean and despite not always being 100% reliable, the content accurate and adequately sourced in the large majority of cases.

Some kind of system that allows users to report comments, the system then ranks the comment based on the number of comments/number of people viewed the clip/number of people who have reported it, once this reaches a critical level it is reviewed by a team of moderators (maybe even voluntary positions for users to take up).

EDIT:
actually, realistically, how hard is it to automatically sensor comments for key words? Not very hard at all. MSE does it okay

Darksun

arcon5 wrote: »

It would be challenging, but not impossible. Look at shear size of Wikipedia, yet they manage to keep the content clean and despite not always being 100% reliable, the content accurate and adequately sourced in the large majority of cases.

Some kind of system that allows users to report comments, the system then ranks the comment based on the number of comments/number of people viewed the clip/number of people who have reported it, once this reaches a critical level it is reviewed by a team of moderators (maybe even voluntary positions for users to take up).

EDIT:
actually, realistically, how hard is it to automatically sensor comments for key words? Not very hard at all. MSE does it okay

Well, for a start Wikipedia is not censored. There are articles on pretty much every swear word in the English language, all sorts of articles on sexual practices and material that is illegal to possess in the UK.

Secondly, an automated system for a site like YouTube would have all sorts of issues. For a start, it's a multi lingual site, so there are words that are considered offensive in one language but have a different meaning in another. Then there's the S!!!!horpe problem, and again this is magnified due to it being multilingual. Finally there's nothing to stop users spelling words slightly differently to avoid the automatic system.

Who gets to decide what is acceptable and what is not anyway? Why shouldn't I be able to access content just because someone else doesn't like the naughty words used in it. If you don't like it, you can find another site, or create your own video sharing platform with your own rules :rotfl:

edit: didn't realise that the MSE filter would demonstrate the s!!!!horpe problem perfectly for me

Scarpacci

arcon5 wrote: »

It would be challenging, but not impossible. Look at shear size of Wikipedia, yet they manage to keep the content clean and despite not always being 100% reliable, the content accurate and adequately sourced in the large majority of cases.

Wikipedia has a far smaller engagement rate than YouTube though. You're much less likely to edit a Wikipedia page than comment on YouTube. Wikipedia's benefit comes from the fact its contributors are either well meaning people who occasionally chime in, very well meaning people who dedicate their time to it (and make up the majority of contributions), or mischief makers who are likely to give up after being foiled a few times.

With YouTube, the bad commenters are more likely to stick around as they're getting their (insane) thoughts out there and are probably being engaged with. YouTube comments are, by and large, likely to encourage the wrong people - a normal person with a sane comment might be shot down by a troll and put off by the nut jobs, while the nut jobs become more likely to stay around when there's more of them about to debate/fight with.

arcon5 wrote: »

Some kind of system that allows users to report comments, the system then ranks the comment based on the number of comments/number of people viewed the clip/number of people who have reported it, once this reaches a critical level it is reviewed by a team of moderators (maybe even voluntary positions for users to take up).

The problem with that is still that eventually it requires human interaction, typically from somebody working for Google. It would require people on a scale that really isn't realistic.

arcon5 wrote: »

EDIT:
actually, realistically, how hard is it to automatically sensor comments for key words? Not very hard at all. MSE does it okay

Automatic censors are easy, they'll block out exact matches on certain words but that's about it. Either the comment gets through with **s, which hardly alter the meaning and are unlikely to stop trolls (who'll learn ways around it), or they don't get through and then you come back to needing human intervention.

YouTube has enough trouble having the staff to review videos when needed, the small portion that are reported, let alone the dozens of comments attached to them. Ultimately, faced with that sort of cost to actively monitor the comments, I suspect they'd remove the whole thing. Comments won't add enough value to make monitoring it well worthwhile, especially not compared to the few people they'll lose with the more uncontrolled comment system they have now.