
YouTube Addresses Massive Spam Problem Following Rollout of Google+ Commenting - hepha1979
http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/26/youtube-addresses-massive-spam-problem-following-rollout-of-much-maligned-google-commenting-system/
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geuis
Ooh ohh I've got an idea. Put things back how they were. YouTube doesn't make
sense as a primary Google-branded property. It's users have a different of
needs than other Google-branded products do. Hell, YouTube isn't even housed
in Mountain View. It's in a different city.

~~~
Pxtl
The problem isn't that Google integrated Youtube's comments into a unified
social layer. Integrating Youtube comments, Blogger comments, Picasaweb
comments, a Facebook-like social network into a single system?

That's a great idea.

The problem is that they screwed the pooch on it in every way I can imagine.
They soft-pedaled the rollout which made it into a million tiny pain-points
and broken promises instead of one big one.

They completely _screwed up_ their automoderation algorithm. It's a failure.
Whatever Youtube used before is obviously better.

They made the system far too opinionated, not giving the page owner any
moderation tools or filters or anything - the page owners can't allow/deny
pseudonymous accounts (and even the existence of pseudonymous accounts is
unclear).

They didn't offer any anonymous approach, and the pseudonymous system is
bizarre and unclear.

If you're building a single social tool like Facebook, being opinionated
helps. But if you're building a whole social platform that you're bolting onto
every form of content your users run? Every video, every blogpost, every
picture? You need to let the users have the tools to run their comment-
sections.

~~~
est
> That's a great idea.

It's a failed idea. Aggregation protocols (RSS and ATOM) abandoned, Friendfeed
died. Because gulping from every source possible without digestion (!) means
diarrhea

Are there any good digestion algorithms or content filtering service out
there? No. For every new merged info, the only thing increased is noise, not
signal.

In separated channels, like Picasa, Blogger, Youtube, you can prioritize them,
you can reply blogger comments while ignore youtube trolls, but in a merged
timeline, you will have serious management troubles

~~~
Pxtl
> It's a failed idea. Aggregation protocols (RSS and ATOM) abandoned,
> Friendfeed died. Because gulping from every source possible without
> digestion (!) means diarrhea

RSS failed because it wasn't user-friendly enough for non-geeks. Other tools
that let users drink from a firehose of unrelated info like Reddit and Twitter
do just fine. Diarrhea or not, they get users.

------
nsxwolf
I liked the comment system on YouTube provided I wasn't looking at random
viral videos with 1M+ hits. On a lot of the channels I subscribed to, the
discussions were respectful and interesting.

Since the G+ fiasco, I have absolutely no idea what's going on. I get asked
who I am by this popup that shows me 6 different choices, mostly duplicates,
over and over. The thing is just never done with me - always demanding I jump
through some new hoop.

~~~
jrockway
I eventually caved and created a G+ page for my "channel". It is annoying how
many times YouTube asked, but the result is quite satisfactory. The sharing
settings actually seem pretty reasonable to me: whenever I interact with
YouTube, Google is very clear about who will see my content (the "Public" icon
from G+ is reused when posting a comment, +1s and upvotes are explicitly
mentioned as being public, and so on), and having a "page" for my "channel"
lets me not use my real name on YouTube, which I irrationally do not want to
do. (jrockway is fine. A two-word Real Name is just too damn formal for
trolling YouTube.)

Overall I do not think this is such a terrible thing; as someone who used G+
pretty actively before the comment system merge, I do see a lot of relevant
comments on YouTube videos I never would have seen before, and since I would
probably be sharing the videos I like to G+ _anyway_ , it doesn't bother me
that my comments show up in both places.

It would be interesting to invent a time machine, go back in time, and try
doing the merge the other way: fold G+ into YouTube. G+ users probably
wouldn't be mad, since they already use YouTube, and YouTube users probably
wouldn't be mad, since they wouldn't notice anything changing. But whatever,
the current version of the integration is fine with me, once you decipher what
"page" and "channel" mean.

~~~
StandardFuture
Please leave a disclaimer stating that you work for Google, as your GitHub[1]
says that you do. Thanks. :)

[1] [https://github.com/jrockway](https://github.com/jrockway)

~~~
jrockway
People take those disclaimers way out of context, so I avoid them. (Google my
name to see how I learned this the hard way.)

Most long-time readers of HN know where I work, and I target my comments in
that direction, rather than to anyone that happens to stumble upon this page.
My apologies.

~~~
vor_
This is a controversial change, and praising the new system while neglecting
to mention that you work for Google risks coming off like astroturfing,
regardless of your intentions. I think enough people can be reasonable and
take your opinions into consideration even if your employer is the topic of
conversation.

~~~
jrockway
That's fine. It's good to consider the source of the argument in addition to
its content. I take a neutral view because I don't really care one way or the
other; if this was jrockway Inc., I might not have done the change in the same
way. But perhaps that's why there is no such thing as jrockway Inc., and there
is a such thing as G+ and YouTube. Who knows.

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k-mcgrady
Wasn't the point of the new system to reduce spam and improve comment
quality?? I was never a fan of YouTube comments even using a Chrome plugin to
hide them for a while, but on some videos I found useful stuff. The little
value they had before seems to have disappeared now. The main reason from my
point of view is that the comments show someone who has shared the video on
Google +. They weren't intending to comment, they were sharing the video and
now it's forced into the YouTube comment stream.

~~~
krapp
No, the point of the new system was to force people to use G+ on youtube.

------
incision
Strangely enough, while I disapproved of these changes in theory I've found
them to be a fairly positive in practice.

I haven't found myself hounded by inane comments because I shared a YT video
on G+, just a few extra +1 notifications from strangers. I don't notice any
extra spam, but I'm watching stuff with thousands not millions of views. The
comments I do see bubbling to the top aren't insightful, but they're generally
civil.

------
majani
Wow, Bob's army actually got their attention. It was becoming scary how
prevalent he was, but I still didn't think Google would care. Shows how low my
faith in their user support has fallen.

~~~
faboo
Between Bob's army and insipid comments rising to the top, the comments
sections of a lot of interesting, community oriented channels became useless
(more so, even, than before). If nobody is actually looking at the comments
section, then it doesn't really make technical sense to keep it as it is -
it's just busy work for their engineers. So it makes sense then for them to
either attempt further fixes, or, in true Google fashion, simply remove the
feature altogether.

~~~
rocky1138
As a viewer I've already eliminated it by joining their Feather beta.

As a video producer, I'm forced to keep comments enabled so I can keep in
touch with my fans.

Thankfully I use two separate Chrome identities.

------
jmpe
Remember the 90s? More specifically Windows & Linux? One was completely
network oriented but sucked for graphics/sound on the desktop, the other was
the complete opposite. Both moved towards each other, but with massive growing
pains - some of which still linger today, a few decades later.

Google does ads. FB does social. They're moving towards each other. These G+
problems? Mark my words: Google's Achilles heal for ever.

------
bane
And broken commenting. I finally gave in and linked it to G+ and now I can't
comment at all. Totally, utterly broken. I click on the comment box, a blank
pop-up shows up for a second then goes away and I can't type at all.

~~~
jamesbritt
Same here. Seems to be an "allow 3rd party cookies" thing. Broken as designed,
so no more you tube commenting for me.

~~~
Steuard
So you've been able to figure out the cause of this? Is there a site out there
that explains the details? (Not that an inability to comment on YouTube is
much of a hardship, but it's occasionally frustrating.)

~~~
jamesbritt
I Googled around and came across a Google support page where someone (probably
not a Googler) explained that they had to change their "allow 3rd-party
cookies" settings because YouTube and the commenting system was loading shit
form everywhere. Possible the everywhere was all Google property, but the idea
that I had to turn off a privacy setting in order to comment on YouTube was
just dumb.

Others on that page confirmed it. Sorry, I don't have a link. The explanation
on the page sounded plausible enough that I said, "OK. Fuck it."

I just checked and this seems to only happen to me on Chrome, but not on
Firefox. Firefox shows my G+ avatar; Chrome seems not to know who am for
YouTube comments, but knows who I am for YouTube channel stuff. Nice.

Now I have to go see how insecure my Firefox settings are. :)

~~~
Steuard
Ah, I see: yeah, I've got 3rd party cookies disabled in Firefox, so that's
presumably my problem. If there were a way to make an exception _only_ for
YouTube requesting a Google+ cookie, I'd do it. But I'm not willing to give
Google+ a blanket pass on all sites, and it doesn't look like Firefox's cookie
controls are fine-grained enough for that. (Maybe I could look for an
extension...)

------
rocky1138
The core problem with Google+ is that people don't want everyone to know what
they Google. What goes in the search box is treated as private (even though we
know governments can see it, we expect that our neighbours cannot) and now
anyone can just skim to our Google+ profile to see everything we've ever done.

I miss the anonymous Internet.

~~~
sukuriant
People can see everything you've ever done by skimming your Google+ profile?

I've avidly avoided this stuff in general, how does this work?

~~~
cheald
No, they can't.

~~~
rocky1138
You're right: it was hyperbole. What I was trying to point out is the
(sometimes) silent publishing of activities to a social feed some people don't
know they have.

------
antihero
I really don't think it fits to try and push YouTube under the Google+
"ecosystem". It's it's own separate community, and many people really want
their YouTube identity to be kept separate from their Google/real life one. It
asks me if I want to use my real name pretty much every time I open the damn
app.

------
ashcairo
I'll be honest with you guys. Since G+ integration, I've found the comments
left on YouTube videos to be far more intelligent and appealing to read.

~~~
rocky1138
I haven't been able to leave a comment since the switch (my browser just keeps
refreshing).

Wait, is your point and mine related?

~~~
afsina
Are you using IE6?

~~~
rocky1138
No, Chrome. But I do have Ghostery installed. I wonder if it's preventing me
from leaving comments. When I click on the comment box and then accept the new
tidbits about G+ comments, the page just refreshes.

------
DonGateley
If they'll give me oldest to newest comment browsing I'll forgive them
anything. Well, almost anything.

I'm a big fan of causality and the flow of time.

------
logfromblammo
Why is this a problem? If anything, unrelated commercial spam could only
increase the level of discourse in YouTube comments. At least if I see a pitch
for a pyramid scheme, it doesn't make me want to kill myself for being in the
same species as the poster.

