YouTube’s comments section, that notorious
bastion of hostility toward women, people of color, rational thought, empathy,
and the English language, is finally getting a makeover. In a series of
sweeping changes that begin rolling out today, the space below YouTube videos
will transform to what Google is calling "conversations that matter to
you." But they will also be tied to the commenter’s Google+ account — a
step that could alienate users even as it promises to supply the social network
with timely new content.
Beginning this week, the new design will start
appearing on the discussions tab for existing channels. The goal for comments,
say YouTube's product designers: relevance, not recency. Before now, comments
appeared on YouTube in reverse chronological order, with the most recent posts
appearing at the top of the feed. The result is a largely undifferentiated
stack of comments that often displays the internet hive mind at its worst. On
popular videos, comment threads stretch into the thousands, and getting through
all of them is practically impossible. "We’ve always been excited about
the opportunity that comments give us," says Nundu Janakiram, a YouTube
product manager, in an interview with The Verge. "We also know we have a
lot of room for improvement."
