YouTube comments are about the worst thing on the Internet. Sure, you could probably dig up some awful subreddit or visit 4chan to see the worst the Internet has to offer, but YouTube comments remain everybody’s reminder that humanity is awful. Now, there’s nothing you can do about humans being awful, but YouTube can do something about its commenting system.
YouTube announced today that it’s finally revamping the way people see comments under videos. As you would expect, Google+ is going to play a large role in the revamp effort. That means that you’ll see more comments from user’s Google+ profiles with links to said profiles.
Now, YouTube comments wouldn’t be that improved by just integrating Google+ into the comments. Thankfully, YouTube is taking it a step further by adding discussion threads. No more will you see a random comment that was made in response to another. You’ll see the original comments and all replies will file in after it.
Another big change is how themselves are presented. Currently, comments are separated by Top Comments, Author Comments and everything else. As the new commenting system improves, users will start to see the kind of comments they care about rise to the top. In other words, you’ll start to see more comments from friends, subscribers and creators instead of the comments that make you want to give up on life.
All the above apply mostly to users, but creators will be getting their own set pf tools with the new commenting system. These new tools will allow creators to moderate comments before they’re posted, block comments that contain certain words and auto-approve comments from certain fans. In short, creators can make sure that the undesirables are never heard from again.
A change to the way we comment on YouTube has been a long time coming, and most of the change is positive. Some will no doubt be skeptical about Google+ further encroaching on YouTube, but it was going to happen sooner or later. At least users and creators still aren’t being forced to merge their YouTube accounts with their Google+ account.
[Image: YouTube Blog]