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Ask HN: How would you improve YouTube comments?

mdp2021 5y ago
Political science has plenty of literature about sophisticated voting systems (vs the simpler systems in general use today): there one can find a good part of the theoretical background. (I am focusing here on the feedback as fundamental to the goal.) An example: Numbers Rule: The Vexing Mathematics of Democracy, from Plato to the Present by George Szpiro is a primer. Of course it depends on the goal defining "improvement" - heuristics, informative/insightful/funny, educational, sinister goals (compulsion, sensationalism etc.). For example, votes should be clustered and weighted (the Professor has more more insight than the Child - so "weighted" - in some areas - so "clustered"). Also: technically, that platform should be heavily modified to allow for fruitful discussion.
LatteLazy 5y ago
Use the same systems as HN: down voted comments disappear, getting down voted stops you commenting, new users are rate limited as are replied on the same thread.
- mdp2021 5y ago
  These techniques (partially) work because this is a somehow selected community. YT has a much more chaotic participation: already downvoting there has little foundation ("classroom: one teacher, thirty pupils...").
  - Nextgrid 5y ago
    The techniques work here because downvotes actually work. Downvotes on YouTube don't do anything.
    - mdp2021 5y ago
      If you proposed an idea conflicting with a good part of the audience here you could probably get some fruitful discussion, because this place attracted enough "good" participants. If you did that in a more noisy place like YT, a fader downvoting would just "remove the heretic". If your population is large enough, heresy is the place to find the "right" point, the "expensive, not cheap" idea (in some areas) (hence my previous statement "1 classroom, 1 teacher, 30 pupils"). Also: In noisy places - take Reddit -, downvoting has a sinister side of "feel free to express how that makes you feel" - an invitation to devaluate prefrontal work. So: downvoting is a big problem, before becoming a solution.
    - LatteLazy 5y ago
      We could recreate that: Bury a setting deep in the more obscure pages where you can opt to only see/be seen by others who opt in.
Nextgrid 5y ago
Ban stupid comments such as "FIRST!!!" or similar shitposts.
ksaj 5y ago
There should be a trigger mechanism that recognizes the type of spam seen, for example, following Twosetviolin posts. There is a specific person who can only barely play piano that posts his songs in every comment thread, even though his links are clearly attempting to derail every conversation in these threads. It should be super easy for YouTube to notice this link over and over and over again in the comments for a single video. There isn't a case where this would be acceptable behaviour, so why not sense it and end it? It is the definition of spam.

mdp2021 5y ago

Political science has plenty of literature about sophisticated voting systems (vs the simpler systems in general use today): there one can find a good part of the theoretical background. (I am focusing here on the feedback as fundamental to the goal.) An example: Numbers Rule: The Vexing Mathematics of Democracy, from Plato to the Present by George Szpiro is a primer. Of course it depends on the goal defining "improvement" - heuristics, informative/insightful/funny, educational, sinister goals (compulsion, sensationalism etc.). For example, votes should be clustered and weighted (the Professor has more more insight than the Child - so "weighted" - in some areas - so "clustered"). Also: technically, that platform should be heavily modified to allow for fruitful discussion.

LatteLazy 5y ago

Use the same systems as HN: down voted comments disappear, getting down voted stops you commenting, new users are rate limited as are replied on the same thread.

mdp2021 5y ago
These techniques (partially) work because this is a somehow selected community. YT has a much more chaotic participation: already downvoting there has little foundation ("classroom: one teacher, thirty pupils...").
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  The techniques work here because downvotes actually work. Downvotes on YouTube don't do anything.
  - mdp2021 5y ago
    If you proposed an idea conflicting with a good part of the audience here you could probably get some fruitful discussion, because this place attracted enough "good" participants. If you did that in a more noisy place like YT, a fader downvoting would just "remove the heretic". If your population is large enough, heresy is the place to find the "right" point, the "expensive, not cheap" idea (in some areas) (hence my previous statement "1 classroom, 1 teacher, 30 pupils"). Also: In noisy places - take Reddit -, downvoting has a sinister side of "feel free to express how that makes you feel" - an invitation to devaluate prefrontal work. So: downvoting is a big problem, before becoming a solution.
  - LatteLazy 5y ago
    We could recreate that: Bury a setting deep in the more obscure pages where you can opt to only see/be seen by others who opt in.

Nextgrid 5y ago

Ban stupid comments such as "FIRST!!!" or similar shitposts.

ksaj 5y ago

There should be a trigger mechanism that recognizes the type of spam seen, for example, following Twosetviolin posts. There is a specific person who can only barely play piano that posts his songs in every comment thread, even though his links are clearly attempting to derail every conversation in these threads. It should be super easy for YouTube to notice this link over and over and over again in the comments for a single video. There isn't a case where this would be acceptable behaviour, so why not sense it and end it? It is the definition of spam.