YouTube and Google have announced that they are teaming up to combat the legion of unnecessary comments on YouTube content by awarding up-loaders with various moderation powers.
Via a large scale integration with Google+ and it’s services, YouTube is planning to afford every user of YouTube, new comment management abilities on their uploaded content. The new system which has been preliminarily granted to a limited number of users on Tuesday, has placed comment importance on relevance over recency.
In addition, users will be able to blacklist certain words or topics from their comment feeds, automatically approve known users, and review all comments before they are publicised. Whilst this will result in no two YouTube comment feeds looking quite the same, Nundu Janakiram the project manager of Google claims that Google and YouTube are trying to “shift from comments to meaningful conversations.”
Furthermore, the Google+ features will commit to a social movement of YouTube users as comments on video content from acquaintances within your Google+ circle will be made prominent, with a private messaging option also under development. Users will still be able to operate under any pseudonym of your choosing, and opt for the previous comment system, so these new features will remain largely optional for those opposed to them.
YouTube and Google have prioritised 3 main elements of consideration for determining comment relevancy:
- Community Engagement
- Upvotes
- Commenter Reputation.
If you’ve been flagged by the YouTube community for spam or abuse, your comments will be barely visible to others, whilst if you’re contributions are valued, you will gain unique privilege to have your voice heard.
Whilst this is a long awaited change to a website notorious for user quarrels and irrelevant arguments, it does seem like a step in the right direction towards harnessing the community of the Internet’s largest video archive. YouTube and Google plan to have this new system fully implemented by the end of 2013.
