or something.
The comments on youtube now have little ratings things for them. A thumbs up or down and along with a ‘reply’ link they have a ‘spam’ one. Will this help stop the morons from posting? Dunno.
For the year or so I’ve had a YouTube account, I don’t recall there not being a spam link. I’m still trying to figure out the “thumbs up/thumbs down” option. And, yes, the morons are still posting as much as ever.
You are implying that some of the people that make comments are not morons. Color me shocked if that is in fact true.
Collegehumor.com recently added a very similar system, and there was almost no noticeable effect.
Spam posts being removed would be better technically, but the real nuisances IMO are the “hater” posts and the ones with zero thought content behind them. Take out all the spam, all the overly negative posters, and you could still end up with pages of posts with nothing but OMG, ROTFL, cool, and Sweeeeeet!!!one!! in the body.
If I ran the place (I actually don’t just yet), I’d put in a semi-annoying feature to limit posting. You’d have to type “I want to make a serious comment” into a field in order to even let you make one. Of course, any smart person could easily just c/p that phrase into the field, but perhaps some of the 10 year olds might either not think of that, or just not bother. I dunno, it’s really hard to filter out ignorant comments on any site, let alone one that popular.
I dunno, I’d probably miss the terrible comments if they took them away now. It reminds me of that Scrubs episode in which Kelso explains that he made his wife get surgery to stop her snoring, but afterwards he couldn’t fall asleep without her wheezing loudly next to him. It just wouldn’t be YouTube without all the hate and ignorance.
Isn’t this considered a “Slashdot-style” of commenting?
The rating system isn’t to stop the idiots - it’s to give you the ability to block idiot comments.
So someone like dnooman could set his “threshold” at something like 1, which would only shot him highly-rated comments, while Team of Scientists could set his threshold at 4 and still hang with the idiots.
And, we could all be kept free of spam by use of the “report as spam” link.
I learn something new everyday it seems.
Oh, so that’s what that dropdown box was for.
Like the above poster, learn something new everyday.
Anything that gets rid of the chain letters and other stupidity is fine by me
YouTube is the Anti-Dope;
“Promoting Ignorance (It’s easier than we thought!!!ONEONE!!!ONE!)”
It’s amazing how dumb general public forums are getting over the years.
I’ve been on the interwebnets since the early 90s - when things first started, you had to be fairly skilled in computer use to be on the internet, so there was some barrier to entry - so almost anyone you came across was at least reasonable not stupid, and usually put some effort into communicating well.
But over the years, as it became easier to access, and became cooler and less nerdy, more average people are coming on. You can still find special interest groups - like the Dope, for instance, scares off idiots - but the level of communication at any sort of unmoderated forum that the general public would be interested in, like youtube, is so absurdly terrible that it makes me fear for the future of humanity. It’s like watching Jerry Springer contestants communicate, but in this case it’s not a few exception idiots being herded onto a TV show, it’s everyone.
The problem with a rating system of this nature is that the people who are in control of the ratings are mostly the same idiots that you’re trying to avoid in the first place. Stupidity can easily be highly rated if it’s a popular sentiment. I doubt people are going to value a well-written, insightful comment over something stupid that they strongly agree with.
Okay, I gotta ask this (and I’m reserving a much broader…and louder…complaint for the Pit)…
Why doesn’t YouTube go all the way and start taking action? Meaning severe warnings, suspensions, and bans.
Look, we can discuss all day about how these boards attract a more intelligent class of Doper and morons are scared off etc, and we can note the anonymity of the Internet emboldening jerks or whatever that Penny Arcade comic said. The only reason there’s order and good sense here is the only reason there’s order and good sense anywhere; because there are rules that are enforced. That’s the long and short of it. There will be jerkish behavior. It’s just a matter of whether or not it’s allowed to stand.
To date, not only have I seen YouTube do absolutely nothing to correct offensive behavior, there isn’t even an option for Ignoring users. (Yes, there’s a “Block” function, but that only blocks comments on videos that you yourself personally uploaded…gee, thanks, that’s gonna be a load of help. :rolleyes: )
When you demonstrate infinite tolerance for anarchy, that’s exactly what you’re going to get. The only solution is to throw the bums out. And then throw out any new bums that show up. Anything else is like fighting a forest fire with a watering can.
(Just for the record, I’ve never seen any site so completely plagued with spam as YouTube. It’s really totally out of control, and nobody…well, besides me…seems to have the slightest interest in curbing it.)
Well, anyway, until someone with the power to change things on that site wises up, I’ll use the thumbs up/down system and hope for the best. I haven’t exactly noticed a big groundswell of support for spam and chain lettes and filth, so it’s at least a good start.
There is a one word answer for why Youtube doesn’t take more serious measures of comment control into account.
Traffic.
It’s a free site. They get ad revenue by either the click through, or the unique visitor count. Traffic is what drives their business. Quality control is going to have to be dealt with carefully, and methodically. Any wrong move could spell a huge drop in the company’s worth, and the sites reputation on the internet in general.