Since its creation in 2005, YouTube has been one of the most visited websites in the world, as well as the most popular video sharing site.
Until now, the very nature of the YouTube comments section has been somewhat shaky. Because it is open to the public, the comments section of this (like many other websites) site is usually home to many different kinds of reactions to videos, many of which don’t even pertain to the video content at hand.
In recent years, the act of ‘trolling’ (typically characterized by intentional attempts by some commenter’s to cause a reaction from the rest of the community) has become more popular, as well as the mass marketing practice of flooding every possible format with links and advertising.
These types of comments are usually never linked to the content of the videos they get posted to, and as a result, moderators and video owners have to work hard to keep their comments free of harmful and useless material, since it is always important to posters and YouTube employees alike to maintain a stable and functioning forum.
YouTube’s latest update to their website addresses the issue by focusing on the format and maintenance of the comments section, adding functions on both sides, for the user and the moderator. One of the most notable changes is that the YouTube comments are now more intertwined with Google+.
Users will be able to make comments that are only visible to certain people on their friends lists, or the can choose to make the comments open to certain Circles. This feature will allow users to create their own personal comments section between friends and chosen individuals whose opinions they care about.
Another feature that will be implemented will rearrange the comment order, moving away from having comments arranged by the time they were posted to favoring comments from the poster and influential figures higher up on the page, as well as allowing certain users to be favored, perhaps because they are considered to have interesting and relevant opinions.
Another interesting feature that will certainly make the comments section a lot more relevant to the video it is linked to is the ability that will be given to the poster to ‘blacklist’ certain words or phrases that will block comments that feature those words as harmful or spam.
These comments will be reviewed by moderators before being banned or reported as safe to the poster of the video (or so I assume, as this feature has not been implemented yet).
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