Youtube now uses Reddit's upvote system. Thoughts?

Youtube comments have always been awful. But starting today, they are a new kind of awful.

Gone are the anti-Justin Beiber trolls and the spam about MILFs making $8k a week from home; from now on, the Youtube comments shown will be those with the highest scores based on upvotes and downvotes.

Anyone who has visited the Reddit mainpage can tell you this leads to bandwagon-ing like you've never seen anywhere else. All the favorite topics of wussy middle school students and dimwitted college students naturally rise to the top, with such classics as: rants about Christianity, kittens doing nothing of interest, feel-good stories that are blatantly fake, and screaming at no one in particular to legalize marijuana.

But I don't want to be overly pessimistic, and considering the previous state of the comments section, it couldn't really get much worse. So what do you think guys? Is it better or worse than before?

In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death, taxes and shit YouTube comments.

Reddit comments are annoying. If there is a bandwagon of sorts going, if you go against it. Even with posting facts you'll get downvoted into oblivion.

After years of shitty and unnecessary updates to YouTube, introducing threaded comments is probably the best update they've made since they first introduced the larger version of the video player.

It sucks

@topic: Poop

Only problem I have with it is, you can't time stamp in comments. I think they might fix this at some points but right now its kinda annouying. Granted, all I do on youtube is listen to music, so I'm probably a minority.

I don't visit reddit, but this doesn't sound that much different than how the comments worked before. They already had that system where the comments with the highest ratings got placed at the top. It doesn't really sound any more or less shitty than before.

U guys shld all shut up coz u r gay. ps3 is for fags.

Ill miss that.

It's terrible. Even worse is how they force you to sign up to Google+ just to comment. I now have about 5 Google+ pages after constantly trying to delete or disconnect the accounts, and I have no idea which are which or how to remove them properly without deleting my email or youtube.

Oh! That's why I couldn't comment? I was so fucking confused. I guess that's a good way for them to force people to use Google Plus though, in an awful businessman sort of way.

There are two things that are going on with Youtube's new system:

- Automatic filtering. Anyone you follow or know is automatically pushed to the top/front.

- Up/Down promotion. The "reddit style" system is not just or fair but it does help with moderating to the consensus. That means a channel devoted to Halo will probably upvote positive comments about the game while shunning the negative ones where it doesn't matter how truthful or accurate either are.

I'll take any moderation system over what it was before. This system will help focus down comments to themes and ideas that align with the channel but the downside is they will become "echo chambers".

There's a section below the videos? I was not aware of this.

No matter the system, any time you start reading YouTube comments you've already lost.

The new Youtube changes have really been grinding on my nerves a lot lately, the worst is how EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. you comment on a video, it asks you if you want to use your real name instead of your Youtube username. NO! NO NO NO NO NO!!! STOP FUCKING ASKING!

Solution: Don't read comments on Youtube

This happened with Youtube already, you would have gotten "This comment has received too many negative votes." or "this comment has been marked as spam." I had it happen to me for agreeing to the video I was on and then having someone pick a fight with me even thou I said what he said.

Youtube gets worse as time goes by.

If you say yes....then you lose the reply button. Instead you have to a similar thing to calling out someone on GB. So here I go @random45. That fine your not part of this thread I want your attention.
What Youtube does is make you callout google plus accounts. So to reply YOU CANNOT hit reply (like here) instead its +Random45.

IF you ever get stuck with google plus...this i how you reply....

Also you can call out random people. The dude Guru Larry I was going to say thanks. Instead while typing in +Larry I saw Larry Hryb....so I called him out for the hell of it. JUST LIKE TWITTER!!!

I am a big fan of disabling comments. Especially for videos, if they have something important to say about a video, make a video response.

Wow, I didn't notice the changes to comments! You actually NEED to have a google+ account to comment now? That is so ridiculously dumb. Next step is that they're just going to lock it until you make a Google+ account. Google just needs to stop trying, they're not going to topple Facebook.

Indifferent.

Look at this YouTube comment my gf made for me on my cakeday, nailed it?

Because of people like Patrick that are always complaining about internet comments and trying to censor them, it's just going to make it more difficult for everyone to leave comments and have discussions.

Youtube never has been and never will be a place to have a "discussion".

Oh fantastic. The new comments system circumvents my comment blocking extension. Now I've gotta find another one.

Still a better love story than twilight.

sorry.

I guess I'd rather see the top rated comments as chosen by idiots instead of only seeing two dudes argue with each other over a "What Does the Fox Say" video.

I'd rather have that than a bullshit karma/upvote system. Thankfully Giant Bomb hasn't stooped to one.

Sometimes, people need to be trolled. There. I said it.

Youtube comments are terrible. I Also i hide them with that youtube thing for chrome.

Whelp, I'm too lazy to make a Google+ account so I'm just going to forget about the comments now I suppose.

Also it's full of people 1: Cursing the new thing, 2: Writing "Wanna see what's wrong with the comments?" a thousand times, and 3: ASCII dicks.

So basically the exact same except now there's more space.

Its amazing how Google manages to make Youtube worse over the years. Recently they removed the grid subscription box and now these comment changes.

I used to love Google but I now find myself thinking about using other services.

Not sure how the ranked system will go, but +yes to the Google+ integration. The internet needs less anonymity to make people more accountable for the bullshit.

Says the person not using his real name on a message board about video games

I wasn't able to type comments on a Youtube video today. Don't know why, some technical thing.

And I realized I was missing out on nothing.

NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. STOP.

Tell that to Russian LGBT/anti-Putin activists, Saudi feminists or Chinese dissidents.

@rangers517: anything to lash out at patrick eh?

While I do agree with you, I only do so partially. It really depends on the subreddit you're browsing. I've had very interesting conversations with people in forums like /r/DCComics or /r/BaldrursGate. And /r/PCMasterRace, of course.

At least it's not Tumblr. Have you seen those Social Justice Warriors and HAES-supporters? They are the worst.

The only time I ever even glance at the comments is to make sure there isn't a random jump scare at the end of whatever "Top 10 weirdest video game ____" video I'm watching. 'Cause that shit happens a lot.

Well, Reddit upvote system is a shitty way to destroy any balanced discussion, but it's not like there was any in the first place, so i don't care.

As a person that can enjoy the occasional Youtube comment (Mowtendoo does weird things to a person's mind), this bums me out.

You can sort comments by top rated or by newest. So it's the same as before but with a new option. I don't see the problem.

It was all a nightmare anyway. I'll be open to throwing on any change into the comments system to see if it might help. Doesn't compare to actually ruining a thing people liked like Twitter.

@thedudeofgaming: THEY DO USE THE INTERNET!

You just watched nations undergo revolutions and their main method of moving information was the Internet. You can watch tyrannical government obsess over how their people are using the Internet, who they are talking to, what they are talking about. Pakistan and Turkey attempt to shut down national access to Internet, but you're going to try to pretend the Internet is just for first world problems?

For millions the Internet is the only avenue or communication method for them to connect to people who actually care about their lives. Yes, anonymity matters, and as soon as they make services that forgo anonymity, there will be superior services created for all those who prefer to be anonymous. I'm perplexed that we've reached a point where we've pushed back the right to privacy in favor of giving everyone access to data they can use to harass and abuse.

When did Patrick ever say he wanted to "censor" comments? Criticising the content of some comments isn't the same as wanting to have them removed. The "censorship" word gets thrown around way too much these days on the internet.

Tumblr is a blogging website, you can post whatever you want to your blog and reply to whoever you want. You don't have to agree with everyone, but no one is going to censor you. The problem with Reddit is that downvotes will lead to your comments becoming invisible and most subreddits just become a hive mind, where anyone disagreeing with the majority being downvoted and driven away. There's absolutely no room for reasoned criticism or discussion. I'll take social justice and equality protestors over circle jerking and bandwagoning.

The system is fucked.

I think we browse very different subreddits.

People with the most time are going to get their comments seen the most. But youtube could put some pretty easy safeguards in place in the background like giving less precedent to up and down votes for accounts created in the last 30 days or accounts only ever used for voting.

They always gotta go fucking with things. Things like Youtube comments that are almost always awful but occasionally good enough that we should've just left them.