Andre Yoskowitz
25 Sep 2013 0:38
YouTube will be radically redesigning its comments section, a section which is globally infamous as being a cesspool for racism, anti-Semitic comments, sexism, homophobia and overall terrible grammar and fanboyism.
Starting today, the comments section will now be transformed into "conversations that matter to you," and will be tied to the commenter's Google+ account.
Google says the new goal is for relevance, not recency. YouTube has removed the reverse chronological order for new comments, where the latest comment shows at the top. For popular videos, like music, the comments can reach tens of thousands, making finding relevant conversations almost impossible to find.
Nundu Janakiram, a YouTube product manager, admits the comments needed much improvement. The new design will bring the more interesting discussions to the top and more relevant to you, such as posts from the video's creator, and people in your Google+ circles. More active discussions will be threaded, as well.
How did the company decide what is relevant? "This is a very complex problem," says Janakiram (via Verge). "Trying to surface meaningful conversations is something that takes work." They company used existing signals (up/downvotes) and completely new ones, 'like the level of engagement in threaded conversations.'
To start, the redesign will only be in the discussion tab of video creators who have linked their accounts to Google+ and enabled discussions on their channel page. Over the next year, however, it will be expanded to all videos.