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Am I the only person who really enjoys YouTube comments? It's obviously not the place to go for high-brow discussion. But the fact that it's a no-holds-barred

Am I the only person who really enjoys YouTube comments? It's obviously not the place to go for high-brow discussion. But the fact that it's a no-holds-barred space means that occasionally some genuinely hilarious and unexpected stuff pops up. I really wouldn't want that to change...

Wilya 14y ago
I like their blunt feel. If people don't like something, they will say so. Loudly. I find that a good thing. Plus, in my experience, they are not so bad. The number of rational and moderate people is quite higher than, for example, in newspaper websites comments. On even moderately successful videos, they accumulate really too fast, though. They quickly become impossible to follow.
- eli 14y ago
  That's only because they added rudimentary voting a few years back. Do you remember what it was like before that?
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
  Personally I think YouTube should have HN/Reddit-style threaded comments, but I wonder how well that works for videos seen and commented on every day.
  - mitchty 14y ago
    They sorta do now with the in reply to link now. Its pretty bad though.
WiseWeasel 14y ago
What kills YouTube comments is the same thing that kills Ars comments, along with pretty much every blog ever; there's no threading and no peer moderation or ranking. No one wants to sort through a river of random comments.
- hfs 14y ago
  >no peer moderation or ranking It seems like enough thumbs down or enough spam flaggings take care of moderation, and thumbs up takes care of at least two rankings.
- CamperBob2 14y ago
  Yet for some reason this model works well on Fark (and, I agree, nowhere else.)
  - groby_b 14y ago
    The entire point of Fark is to make off-topic, off-color remarks. So yes, for that, it works well :)
    - mey 14y ago
      This also explains how Reddit works so well
      - ramblerman 14y ago
        reddit has peer moderation and ranking. Which is why it works well, it's nothing like flat fark or youtube comments
- twelvechairs 14y ago
  I came here to say exactly the same thing...
chimeracoder 14y ago
If you ask me, the legendary reputation of trolling on Youtube comments is largely a relic of the past - you still have trolls, to some extent, but nowadays most videos' comments are closer to the trolls' comments on more mainstream subreddits, whereas before they seemed more like the fringes of 4chan. I don't like this change. If you look at the top two comments on most videos (the two highest-rated comments), they tend to be funny at best, and lame-but-harmless jokes at worst. Not the crown jewel of the Internet by any means, but they've developed a culture of their own, and I dislike the idea of disrupting that with seemingly no reason (other than to create a "unified" identity).
ericdykstra 14y ago
YouTube comments on videos where there's a new page of comments every time you refresh are awful, and not worth paying attention to. On a lot of types of videos, comments add absolutely nothing. The one exception I've found is for music, where the plays on the video are between 10,000 and 500,000 or so. The discussion is pertinent and sometimes interesting, and I've had a couple of good back-and-forths on those kinds of videos. I'm not sure if adding real names will help expand the number of videos where discussion is decent, but I don't think it will hurt.
nwhitehead 14y ago
Actually some subjects on YouTube do have high-brow discussion, they're just not the millions-of-views kinds of subjects. I did a bunch of videos on quantitative finance, the discussions on those often involve talking about calculus, questions about assumptions in financial models, etc. The comments actually add a lot of value to the videos. One nice thing is that the anonymity means that real finance people can comment without worrying about their employer finding their comments. All the best financial discussion areas have to have good anonymity for participants to get people from industry involved.
- ImprovedSilence 14y ago
  Any chance you could provide a link to those videos? I'd be interested in checking them out.
  - roryokane 14y ago
    I found his YouTube channel with a little Googling. He's NathanWhitehead: http://www.youtube.com/user/NathanWhitehead http://www.youtube.com/user/NathanWhitehead.
- modarts 14y ago
  I'd be interested in checking out your videos if you have a link lying around.
  - roryokane 14y ago
    See my reply to ImprovedSilence: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4284419 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4284419.
vipervpn 14y ago
There's a Jerry Springer quality to the comments, which isn't all bad. Sometimes I'll go to read them for a laugh.
dinkumthinkum 14y ago
I think it is a good reminder how awful and diseased humans really are. Nothing makes for a better case for the concept of letting humanity go as YouTube comments. I think if we lost YouTube comments as they are, we would lose that reality check and begin deluding ourselves. :)

Wilya 14y ago

I like their blunt feel. If people don't like something, they will say so. Loudly. I find that a good thing. Plus, in my experience, they are not so bad. The number of rational and moderate people is quite higher than, for example, in newspaper websites comments. On even moderately successful videos, they accumulate really too fast, though. They quickly become impossible to follow.

eli 14y ago
That's only because they added rudimentary voting a few years back. Do you remember what it was like before that?
TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
Personally I think YouTube should have HN/Reddit-style threaded comments, but I wonder how well that works for videos seen and commented on every day.
- mitchty 14y ago
  They sorta do now with the in reply to link now. Its pretty bad though.

WiseWeasel 14y ago

What kills YouTube comments is the same thing that kills Ars comments, along with pretty much every blog ever; there's no threading and no peer moderation or ranking. No one wants to sort through a river of random comments.

hfs 14y ago
>no peer moderation or ranking It seems like enough thumbs down or enough spam flaggings take care of moderation, and thumbs up takes care of at least two rankings.
CamperBob2 14y ago
Yet for some reason this model works well on Fark (and, I agree, nowhere else.)
- groby_b 14y ago
  The entire point of Fark is to make off-topic, off-color remarks. So yes, for that, it works well :)
  - mey 14y ago
    This also explains how Reddit works so well
    - ramblerman 14y ago
      reddit has peer moderation and ranking. Which is why it works well, it's nothing like flat fark or youtube comments
twelvechairs 14y ago
I came here to say exactly the same thing...

chimeracoder 14y ago

If you ask me, the legendary reputation of trolling on Youtube comments is largely a relic of the past - you still have trolls, to some extent, but nowadays most videos' comments are closer to the trolls' comments on more mainstream subreddits, whereas before they seemed more like the fringes of 4chan. I don't like this change. If you look at the top two comments on most videos (the two highest-rated comments), they tend to be funny at best, and lame-but-harmless jokes at worst. Not the crown jewel of the Internet by any means, but they've developed a culture of their own, and I dislike the idea of disrupting that with seemingly no reason (other than to create a "unified" identity).

ericdykstra 14y ago

YouTube comments on videos where there's a new page of comments every time you refresh are awful, and not worth paying attention to. On a lot of types of videos, comments add absolutely nothing. The one exception I've found is for music, where the plays on the video are between 10,000 and 500,000 or so. The discussion is pertinent and sometimes interesting, and I've had a couple of good back-and-forths on those kinds of videos. I'm not sure if adding real names will help expand the number of videos where discussion is decent, but I don't think it will hurt.

nwhitehead 14y ago

Actually some subjects on YouTube do have high-brow discussion, they're just not the millions-of-views kinds of subjects. I did a bunch of videos on quantitative finance, the discussions on those often involve talking about calculus, questions about assumptions in financial models, etc. The comments actually add a lot of value to the videos. One nice thing is that the anonymity means that real finance people can comment without worrying about their employer finding their comments. All the best financial discussion areas have to have good anonymity for participants to get people from industry involved.

ImprovedSilence 14y ago
Any chance you could provide a link to those videos? I'd be interested in checking them out.
- roryokane 14y ago
  I found his YouTube channel with a little Googling. He's NathanWhitehead: http://www.youtube.com/user/NathanWhitehead http://www.youtube.com/user/NathanWhitehead.
modarts 14y ago
I'd be interested in checking out your videos if you have a link lying around.
- roryokane 14y ago
  See my reply to ImprovedSilence: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4284419 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4284419.

vipervpn 14y ago

There's a Jerry Springer quality to the comments, which isn't all bad. Sometimes I'll go to read them for a laugh.

dinkumthinkum 14y ago

I think it is a good reminder how awful and diseased humans really are. Nothing makes for a better case for the concept of letting humanity go as YouTube comments. I think if we lost YouTube comments as they are, we would lose that reality check and begin deluding ourselves. :)