Metafilter comments vs. Youtube comments

March 24, 2008 10:35 AM

How much difference does $5 make?. Mashup by bertrandom pulls the most recent comments from Metafilter and the comments from the most viewed videos on Youtube and puts them side-by-side for comparison.

Self-indulgent wankery, but so, so satisfying. I thought this didn't deserve to languish on Projects.

posted by dmd to MetaFilter-Related at 10:35 AM (107 comments total)

Cherry picking.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:42 AM on March 24, 2008

USA RULES
posted by interrobang at 10:47 AM on March 24, 2008

lol!this is definately going on my favourite list!!!XD
posted by kittens for breakfast at 10:52 AM on March 24, 2008

Two very different demographics exhibit very different posting styles.

Ok.
posted by deern the headlice at 10:53 AM on March 24, 2008

PLEASE DONT READ THIS. YOU WILL GET KISSED ON THE NEAREST POSSIBLE FRIDAY BY THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE. TOMORROW WILL BE THE BEST DAY OF YOUR LIFE. HOWEVER IF YOU DONT POST THIS COMMENT TO AT LEAST 3 THREDS YOU WILL DIE WITHIN 2 DAYS. NOW UV STARTED READIN DIS DUNT STOP THIS IS SO SCARY. SEND THIS OVER TO 5 THREDS IN 143 MINUTES WHEN UR DONE PRESS F6 AND UR CRUSHES NAME WILL APPEAR ON THE SCREEN IN BIG LETTERS. THIS IS SO SCARY BECAUSE IT ACTUALLY WORKs

Please, please, please don't do this.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:56 AM on March 24, 2008 [1 favorite]

PLEASE DONT READ THIS. YOU WILL GET KISSED ON THE NEAREST POSSIBLE FRIDAY BY THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE. TOMORROW WILL BE THE BEST DAY OF YOUR LIFE.

Awesome!!!

HOWEVER IF YOU DONT POST THIS COMMENT TO AT LEAST 3 THREDS YOU WILL DIE WITHIN 2 DAYS.

daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang
posted by kittens for breakfast at 10:57 AM on March 24, 2008 [3 favorites]

OK, how do I find out what video "wanna c me turn into a wolf go to my profile watch my vid tanx" came from?
posted by Wolfdog at 10:58 AM on March 24, 2008 [1 favorite]

In other news, readers of the New York Post differ widely from readers of the Harvard Business Review.

Thanks, Captain Obvious.
posted by SeizeTheDay at 11:04 AM on March 24, 2008

Metafilter: wanna c me turn into a wolf go to my profile watch my vid tanx
posted by plexi at 11:06 AM on March 24, 2008

OK, how do I find out what video "wanna c me turn into a wolf go to my profile watch my vid tanx" came from?

right here
posted by pyramid termite at 11:07 AM on March 24, 2008 [12 favorites]

Wow, thanks. I missed that Iain M. Banks thread.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 11:09 AM on March 24, 2008 [1 favorite]

Pony Request: Run a script that automatically deducts $100 from a user's PayPal account every time they post a rickroll. You're clever guys so you can figure out how to work around the authorization issue.
posted by Burhanistan at 11:09 AM on March 24, 2008 [5 favorites]

hes a vinnila faced faget who thinks that superman is a hoe........... how can a comic charecter be a hoe especially when hes a dude

The anonymous Mr. Doe brings up an excellent point.
posted by cmonkey at 11:10 AM on March 24, 2008

"On belated prepostview: 'priests', of course."

vs.

"prove your not gay by checking out my new video of my nipple popping out at the pool"
posted by katillathehun at 11:10 AM on March 24, 2008

A better mashup would be the YT comments on a youtube video, and the comments on a single-link you tube post to that same video.

For example: Obama Speech: 'A More Perfect Union'(YT) vs. Obama's Gettysburg Address (MeFi).
posted by Pastabagel at 11:14 AM on March 24, 2008 [4 favorites]

(From the Metafilter half of that page): I'd have to agree with delmoi

I'll take YouTube. IMDB is really the gold-standard for message board in(s)anity, though.
posted by 1 at 11:18 AM on March 24, 2008

eF4jNRblQiVPh3eFXlbTVi3SV Woow I drank 6 beers tonight im wasted LoL..Chek my new sexy vidd D2UWexWOhJ6qcMd3icuoptsIuyOCU
posted by parmanparman at 11:19 AM on March 24, 2008

If I pony up five more dollars, will I be able to write like Nabokov?
posted by Tube at 11:23 AM on March 24, 2008 [2 favorites]

Actually, what I want is something that will do a mashup of yahoo answers vs ask.mefi (from here).

Try to find equivalent questions on both sites, or atleast latest in each category, and post them side by side.

I mean: Yahoo! Answers vs Ask Metafilter
posted by mrzarquon at 11:25 AM on March 24, 2008

mQBjGdMqIMnKQd0FqqeY8 islamic whore slaps her tits with pork chops video on my channel 51bvXQK5D4dI0MkxubTYV

Good lord. Rule 34.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 11:26 AM on March 24, 2008

That sounds very transgressive.
posted by jouke at 11:31 AM on March 24, 2008 [1 favorite]

OK, let's play a game: did this come from MeFi or YT?

for them blowing the shit out of outr twin towers killing over 2000 people moron im glad there over there popping the fucking terrorist blowing there fucking heads off if the wars still going on in 5 more years im going fuck yes

Anybody, jump right in, don't be afraid to be wrong.
posted by baphomet at 11:35 AM on March 24, 2008 [4 favorites]

These are pretty nice:

CRAP! WHAT ABOUT FORESY RANGERS

Play this song backward! It says 'do you want to f-k her?'. No lie. Subliminal messages all through the song.

and the classic bon mot:

shut the fuck up you fucking albanian
posted by porn in the woods at 11:39 AM on March 24, 2008 [1 favorite]

Now that I've already paid $5, let's raise the fee to $7.50. You know all already know the math, but: Inflation + Elitism = $2.50
posted by Pants! at 11:41 AM on March 24, 2008

NnQjJWbFcIBEirDo2grjPY youtube keeps deleting all my naked stuff so watch it while you still can eUGr3oBxZUPgWjxuVZtn54PC

Why the seemingly random character strings? Are those magical cookies that identify them as YouTube users, or someting?
posted by soundofsuburbia at 11:43 AM on March 24, 2008

Burhanistan's anti-RickRoll comment flagged as "killjoy off-lawn getting."
posted by BeerFilter at 11:44 AM on March 24, 2008

Metafilter: shut the fuck up you fucking albanian
posted by Meatbomb at 11:44 AM on March 24, 2008

Cherry picking.

As far as I can tell, the point is that it's not cherry picking. These are automatically snagged comment feeds, not a hand-picked best-of-mefi vs. worst-of-youtube thing.

Regardless, I think it's pretty neat as a more concrete way to really A/B the commentary on the two sites. I'd be interested to see the AskMe vs. Yahoo Answers thing in action, too; and maybe more generally a way of looking at any pair of sites.

Examining commentary for substantially identical content would be neat, in particular; at first I thought this was going to be showing comments from Youtube on videos x, y and z vs. comments on Mefi about the same—grabbing only mefi posts that feature a prominent youtube link or three, and then going from there to grab youtube comments on the appropriate videos. As a 2.0 version, that'd be decidely sexy.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:51 AM on March 24, 2008 [1 favorite]

soundofsuburbia: the random crap is to prevent their spamfilter from reliably identifying essentialy equivalent comments as being the same, under the hope that everyone marking one as spam won't affect others, as they systematically spam as many videos as they can.
posted by aubilenon at 11:51 AM on March 24, 2008

kjhusf83d I'm TOTALLY going to start doing that here! kdijfnslNE9z
posted by kosem at 11:53 AM on March 24, 2008 [1 favorite]

I would like to see an auto-feed comparison of reader comments on news sites for those that allow them (CBC, BBC, etc.) in a head-to-head comparison for the Most Concentrated Craziness.

I would ask the same for print news except it would probably blow my mind.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 11:54 AM on March 24, 2008

OK, let's play a game: did this come from MeFi or YT?

That'd be a fun project, too: with two sites, present a random comment from one or the other. The thing is, baphomet's comment could totally appear on mefi, though it'd be pretty bottom-of-the-barrel stuff for punctuation and cohesion. But how often would a randomly selected mefi comment be mistaken for a likely YouTube comment, and vice versa?
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:54 AM on March 24, 2008

aubilenon: Aha, I see! Thank you for clearing that up!
posted by soundofsuburbia at 11:54 AM on March 24, 2008

"wanna c me turn into a wolf go to my profile watch my vid tanx"

Here's that wolf video. 200 views. I don't think his campaign is working. Watch out, it's pretty frightening.
posted by yeti at 11:55 AM on March 24, 2008 [2 favorites]

Metafilter: She should grow her hair or put a weave on and get bangs, cuz no offense she has a big forehead.
posted by BigLankyBastard at 12:21 PM on March 24, 2008

Metafilterans post like this

Youtubers post like this

Amirite?
posted by drezdn at 12:25 PM on March 24, 2008 [4 favorites]

As far as I can tell, the point is that it's not cherry picking. These are automatically snagged comment feeds, not a hand-picked best-of-mefi vs. worst-of-youtube thing.

Shooting fish in a barrel, then. Either way, the difference proves nothing in particular about either site.

Regardless, I think it's pretty neat as a more concrete way to really A/B the commentary on the two sites.

YouTube and Metafilter are two entirely different sites. You might as well compare the commentary on Metafilter with the Ableton forum. It's a pointless, trite snark.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:28 PM on March 24, 2008

Anyone know how I can see a fat kid dance and make a fool out of himself?
posted by yhbc at 12:32 PM on March 24, 2008

"Anyone know how I can see a fat kid dance and make a fool out of himself?"

Mirror?
posted by mr_crash_davis at 12:36 PM on March 24, 2008 [12 favorites]

You want to learn how to program. You want to learn how to use the Unix/Linux terminal. You want to watch my videos.

Well, I do now!
posted by shmegegge at 12:37 PM on March 24, 2008

I love how the first difference I noticed was punctuation.

Ah, punctuation, the lost art.


.;!
posted by Planet F at 12:39 PM on March 24, 2008

Imagine how good the comments here would be if Matt charged 5 euros.
posted by lukemeister at 12:40 PM on March 24, 2008 [3 favorites]

What we need is MeTube. A section of MeFi where we upload our own videos and try our best to make real, you-tube style comments.
posted by ORthey at 12:41 PM on March 24, 2008

Also,

zac efron is a gay burnt orange tart. that cant sing

Really? I didn't know that. hmm...
posted by Planet F at 12:42 PM on March 24, 2008

How about 5 gold Krugerrands?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:43 PM on March 24, 2008

Imagine how good the comments here would be if Matt charged 5 euros.

shut the fuck up you fucking albanian
posted by Greg Nog at 12:45 PM on March 24, 2008 [9 favorites]

How about 5 gold Krugerrands

shut the fuck up you fucking albanian
posted by Greg Nog at 12:46 PM on March 24, 2008 [5 favorites]

YouTube and Metafilter are two entirely different sites. You might as well compare the commentary on Metafilter with the Ableton forum. It's a pointless, trite snark.

I don't think the actual project itself is snarky. Plenty of snark in this thread, sure, and anti-youtube snark on Mefi galore; perhaps snark in bertrandom's intent (though the writeup on Projects is pretty straightfoward and snarkfree). But looking at comments from the two sites, or from any two sites, as a pair of unfiltered gestalts is just plain interesting as far as I'm concerned. There are more complicated reactions to be had here beyond "lol sux, yo", and I don't think it's really fair to dismiss the project or the idea as being about that and that alone.
posted by cortex (staff) at 12:57 PM on March 24, 2008

I don't think it's really fair to dismiss the project or the idea as being about that and that alone.

If you're citing comments from either site for the purposes of comparing those two sites in any qualitative or quantitative way, you are totally, completely missing the point about what both sites are about.

For about as much meaning as it imparts, I may as well have one column measuring rainfall levels over time, and another column for a stream of clicks coming out of a Geiger counter. Snark away!
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:04 PM on March 24, 2008

If you're citing comments from either site for the purposes of comparing those two sites in any qualitative or quantitative way, you are totally, completely missing the point about what both sites are about.

Why? Why can't I both grasp that MeFi and Youtube are very different sites with different draws and different demographics and take an interest in the differences between the comments the two sites attract? What is so fundamentally broken about that, so essentially trite and snarky that actual value in the exercise is self-evidently absent?
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:07 PM on March 24, 2008 [2 favorites]

cortex i juts learned a phrase that allows you to argue without havin to use all thise words

cortex

e-mail me if you want to leanr that prhase too

its about albaninans
posted by Greg Nog at 1:14 PM on March 24, 2008 [47 favorites]

hey guys? I... I just noticed something.

wh-... where's bugbread? Has anyone seen him? I haven't seen him since february 16th.

guys, I'm scared.
posted by shmegegge at 1:14 PM on March 24, 2008

Not to detract from any actual discussion, but it's important that I acknowledge that I certainly did walk into that one, yessiree.
posted by yhbc at 1:14 PM on March 24, 2008

It seems like there's a proverb buried in there somewhere. "You can go cherry-picking at YouTube, but your friends will scorn your pies," or something.
posted by Wolfdog at 1:18 PM on March 24, 2008

Because the comments themselves are not what the sites are about. The sites may document comments, but the content itself (Metafilter: links; YT: video) is what imparts a meaningful signal, which is what is "comparable".
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:20 PM on March 24, 2008 [1 favorite]

that's an awfully restrictive stance to take. the only aspect of metafilter that one should compare to other sites is its links? you sure you're not getting a little entrenched, here?

but on a more important note: for real guys, bugbread. missing. we need to form a search party.
posted by shmegegge at 1:23 PM on March 24, 2008

The comments are nonetheless very much a part of both sites. Commentary is less vital to YouTube than to Metafilter, sure, and the roles and management and any number of other aspects of the commentary question vary between the two sites, but that doesn't some how mean there's no value in looking at either site's comments.

I said upthread that I'd love to see a comparison of Youtube comments on a given video vs. Metafilter comments on a thread about the same video; that'd be a more closely related pairing and I think it'd be neat to look at the substance (rather than just the presentation) of the commentary on either side, of what gets noted and by whom and what threads of conversation develop in either case.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:26 PM on March 24, 2008

bugbread isn't missing, he's just a bit lurky lately for whatever reason.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:27 PM on March 24, 2008

I can not say this is the first time I've heard the "it's about the links, stupid" mindset regarding MetaFilter before.

I disagree. It's the same way a Facebook/Flickr mashup works. Sure they're different, but the web is evolving to the point where common concepts of community are providing analogues between differing sites. Reducing this to Links vs. Video is ignoring the last 5 years of web evolution.

When comparing the user base, why not consider the users means of expressing themselves?
posted by butterstick at 1:36 PM on March 24, 2008

The youtube half wasn't showing up when i opened the page, so i scrolled down the page, expecting a LOLfag or something else hideous as a juxtaposition of all the comments on mefi...

I was totally ready for a joke that didn't happen.

Bummer.
posted by schyler523 at 1:40 PM on March 24, 2008

You might need to widen your browser, schyler523; I had to, to get the columns to show up side by side. Otherwise, the YT comments chill out underneath the MF comments. Rogue float:left, I'm guessing.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:47 PM on March 24, 2008

Needs more Fark.
posted by Eideteker at 1:55 PM on March 24, 2008

Doesn't work for me either. Mac, 10.5.2, Safari and Firefox 3.
posted by ikkyu2 at 1:56 PM on March 24, 2008

Not working for me in Firefox or IE7 at 1024px width (Windows XP).
posted by Artw at 1:56 PM on March 24, 2008

Adding to the chorus of "its borked"
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 1:59 PM on March 24, 2008

Does anyone actually read comments at YouTube BTW? Seems like, apart from the occasional dip in to mock them, they are pretty much a write-only phenomena.
posted by Artw at 1:59 PM on March 24, 2008 [1 favorite]

"Free Tibet!!!!!!!!!" popped up on the youtube side, thus shattering the barrier between the sites.
posted by CKmtl at 2:03 PM on March 24, 2008

Stupidfilter is a project that intends to use Bayesian filtering to filter out stupid comments. Something like Bayesian spamfilters taken to the next level.

The initial seed corpus they used is apparently drawn mostly from Youtube comments. They really are a great baseline of stupid.
posted by Drastic at 2:07 PM on March 24, 2008 [1 favorite]

The YouTube side isn't loading anything for me in either Firefox 2 or IE 7. :(
posted by IndigoRain at 2:17 PM on March 24, 2008

things I have put into the Stupidfilter live demo and the results I received for them.

lol fag. you're retarded (result: text is likely to be stupid.)
if there's one thing I know about William F Buckley, it's that he was an articulate racist, but a racist nonetheless. (result: text is NOT likely to be stupid.)
George W. Bush is a hero. (result: text is NOT likely to be stupid.)
George W. Bush is a hero. lol. (result: text is likely to be stupid.)
If there's one thing I love, it's sticking forks into light sockets. (stupid)
If there's one thing I love, it's Terry Gilliam's masterpiece, Brazil. (stupid)
I fondly remember growing up on a farm in Hoboken, New Jersey. My parents raised wild dishwasher detergent and sold it to shriners amid the lettuce. (NOT stupid)
Wherefore art thou, weird al yankovic? (NOT stupid)
Dearest, you simply must try some of this baby. I've never eaten anything quite so delicious. (stupid)
posted by shmegegge at 2:40 PM on March 24, 2008 [1 favorite]

Yeah, the youtube side is blank for me now too. Must be something up on the supply side.
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:46 PM on March 24, 2008

shmegegge:

"I am afraid I have forgotten how to masturbate. Please jerk me off." (Text is not likely to be stupid.)
posted by mr_crash_davis at 2:53 PM on March 24, 2008 [2 favorites]

I should like to proffer my soup analogy. Soup is essentially homogeneous as far as taste goes. I really doesn't take more than one spoonful assess if it is too salty, too hot, or too thin. Likewise comments on particular websites are by and large homogeneous.

This is a roundabout way of saying that you really don't have to spend much time to asses the temperament of YouTube or Metafilter comments. While I think this mashup is funny, and in fact "favorited" it, it's really kind of overkill.
posted by Tube at 3:07 PM on March 24, 2008

Yeah, the youtube side is blank for me now too. Must be something up on the supply side.

That's a feature, not a bug. LOLZ!!1!
posted by Rock Steady at 3:07 PM on March 24, 2008

The unbearable whiteness of youtubing?
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:14 PM on March 24, 2008

As of now at least, it appears that a sentence with any combination of the words "what", "up" and "that" is likely to be stupid.

What up with that? - likely to be stupid.
What is up with that? - likely to be stupid.
What is up that tree? - likely to be stupid.
What is up the tree? - not likely to be stupid.
What is that up the tree? - likely to be stupid.

What up with that?
posted by yhbc at 3:22 PM on March 24, 2008

Metafilter: shut the fuck up you fucking albanian - Text is likely to be stupid.
posted by StephenF at 3:36 PM on March 24, 2008 [1 favorite]

We should get involved in two protracted wars simultaneously while drastically cutting taxes.
Text is not likely to be stupid.
posted by whir at 3:52 PM on March 24, 2008

Imagine if YouTube allowed avatars, image heavy sigs and animated smileys...
posted by soundofsuburbia at 4:03 PM on March 24, 2008

Imagine if YouTube allowed avatars, image heavy sigs and animated smileys...

The synergy of the two stupidities just gave me brain cancer.
posted by bunnytricks at 4:07 PM on March 24, 2008

1: "IMDB is really the gold-standard for message board in(s)anity, though."

I'll have to disagree with you there. Have you seen the AOL message boards?
posted by Rhaomi at 4:07 PM on March 24, 2008

Highlarious.
posted by wafaa at 4:14 PM on March 24, 2008

soundofsuburbia: Imagine if YouTube allowed avatars, image heavy sigs and animated smileys...

Have you ever been to Gaia Online Forums? The formatting gives me a headache every single time.
posted by Phire at 4:26 PM on March 24, 2008

I'm must say that the white background on the YouTube side makes it look very professional...
posted by tkolar at 5:02 PM on March 24, 2008 [1 favorite]

This "Forked Penis Awesome" Award goes to you, dmd.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 5:09 PM on March 24, 2008 [1 favorite]

This is how babby is formed, amirite?

Wait, what's that? We're slagging YouTube here? The Yahoo! Answers shitfest is a few doors down?

Goddamit.
posted by slogger at 5:48 PM on March 24, 2008 [1 favorite]

another argument for elitism.
[as if we needed to convince the paupers.]
posted by krautland at 6:21 PM on March 24, 2008 [1 favorite]

Could we please get a demographic breakdown of YouTube vs. Metafilter users so we can adjust our prejudices accordingly?
posted by blue_beetle at 6:53 PM on March 24, 2008

PLEASE DONT READ THIS. IF YOU DONT FAVOURITE THIS COMMENT YOU WILL DIE WITHIN 5 MINUTES FROM A LACK OF COMMON DIGNITY.
posted by Krrrlson at 7:33 PM on March 24, 2008

Bullshit. I've been lacking all dignity for years and I'm still alive.
posted by Justinian at 8:10 PM on March 24, 2008

I made this.

Regarding the Youtube comments not appearing:

This is somewhat ironic but I think it was because someone wrote a really long, non-breaking comment like YOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUU... and that broke the layout. I added a CSS tag to try to accomodate for that (refresh the page), let me know if it's still not working or if you have any solutions. Sorry, I'm not very good at CSS, I'm a web programmer.

Regarding the intent:

It was supposed to be funny, not some grand social commentary. Youtube comments are the lowest common denominator of the internetz. IMDB comments are like Youtube comments without the racism. Maybe there's something about watching videos that makes you retarded? This is not to say Metafilter is all that and a bag of chips, but even the supposed worst of it yields some gems. And as cortex mentioned, these are not cherry picked, these come from an aggregated comments feed from Metafilter, it's what you guys are writing on the blue, updated every hour.
posted by bertrandom at 8:39 PM on March 24, 2008 [1 favorite]

I know I should just stop reading these, but this one made me chuckle:

follow these 3 easy steps: 1. go to microsoft word 2. type in your crushes name 3. your crushes name will appear on the screen
posted by yhbc at 8:46 PM on March 24, 2008 [5 favorites]

Now I want to see a mashup of Ask Metafilter vs. Eggagog.
posted by flabdablet at 9:00 PM on March 24, 2008

I'm sorry, I'll just feel that again.

Now I want to see a mashup of Ask Metafilter vs. Eggagog.
posted by flabdablet at 9:01 PM on March 24, 2008

Is it the $5 or the age of the user making the comment? In 10 years, will AskMe comments say, "OMG! u2?! Mathowie hawtt! Jess kick yer a$$. Should I eat this or n0t?"
posted by acoutu at 10:42 PM on March 24, 2008 [1 favorite]

I wrote a Firefox plugin that replaces comments at Youtube with comments pulled at random from Metafilter threads that have the same keywords.

No, I didn't. I am lying to you, you silly albanians.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:45 PM on March 24, 2008

I'm sorry, I'll just feel that again.

Um, please don't.
posted by slogger at 10:52 PM on March 24, 2008

acoutu writes "Is it the $5 or the age of the user making the comment?"

I think it's the community, or lack thereof. I might be going out on a limb here, but I'd bet that 99% of youtube commenters don't think that anyone they know will read their comments (bringing the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory into play), whereas most MeFi posters have some investment in their identity here. I think for most MeFites the $5 is a small token of their commitment in the community. Less anonymity = more thought in how you present yourself, which leads to higher quality writing.

I bet if YouTube charged even $1 for commenting privileges, their anonymous moron ratio would plummet and comment quality would skyrocket. This would generate an atmosphere of greater mutual respect, and create a tighter-knit, stickier community.
posted by mullingitover at 12:05 PM on March 25, 2008

This fixes Youtube.
posted by dmd at 12:44 PM on March 25, 2008 [3 favorites]

The $5 has something to do w/the disparity - but I think it's more about accountability than anything. YouTube has no such accountability.

There's no real "profiles", 1000s of users are just re-posting the popular shit under their own handle for a quick "hey look at me!" ego-stroking. If their account gets deleted, no biggie. If they post 100 stupid comments a day, they suffer no consequences and no one's going to report them.

Furthermore, it's not as easy to look up a given YT users' past comments on videos, to see if they're consistently being shitheads.

You don't need to use MeFi as an example - you could easily point to a semi-private online forum. Most forums have built-in systems for checking a user's posting history, and if a user is consistently being a shithead, the community at large will shun them and it won't be a place that person wants to be a part of much longer.

Even MySpace has better commenting etiquette than YouTube, because people have invested (in some cases) quite a lot into their profile, and they don't want to lose that. So, it behooves them to at least be a little more community-friendly. Also, again, there's accountability - you know exactly who left a given comment, and often who their friends are, what they write in their blog, what they look like, etc.

I can bet if you compared the comments of people who have a lot of self-made, high-view-count content on YT with the ones who have little to none - you'd find the ones who have more to lose (if, say, their account were banned) make more worthwhile commentary.

Until YouTube implements a better accountability system, shitheads will flourish.
posted by revmitcz at 2:13 PM on March 25, 2008

> Metafilter: wanna c me turn into a wolf go to my profile watch my vid tanx

Metafilter: Metafilter: Metafilter: Metafilter: Metafilter: Metafilter: Metafilter:

Malkovich.
posted by WCityMike at 1:39 PM on March 26, 2008

I'd just like to note that after cortex closed the post of this on the blue, it started working for the first time.

So. Yeah.
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 8:49 PM on March 29, 2008

It's definitely not the $5, as $10 gets you into Something Awful.
posted by flatluigi at 10:38 PM on March 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

This was discussed today on the Freakonomics blog
posted by jeversol at 10:45 AM on April 10, 2008

I feel all conflicted about talking about Metafilter on Freakonomics. I feel sort of conspicuously mefi-centric in what I tend to have to say over there, but it's what I know.

I like the Steve's a bunch; I'm far from in love with the comments over on their new NYT digs, because it feels a little like a bunch of random strangers each thread and the moderation queue handling of comments feels so sluggish to me. For that, though, the comments are generally pretty decent (even if a lot of "perfunctory comment on subject HERE IS MY WEBSITE" stuff gets let through).

But the lack of real conversation by the guys (and gals) over there in their own threads honestly leaves me more turned off than anything. I think I've very much settled into the idea of comment sections as conversation rather than bulletin board, and I've come to association open-comments blogs pretty strongly with an implicit expression on the part of the author of interest in talking about the things they post about. Personal bias, I suppose.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:33 AM on April 10, 2008

I feel all conflicted about talking about Metafilter on Freakonomics.

You cheatin' harlot!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:20 PM on April 10, 2008

FIRST!!!!
posted by Busithoth at 8:06 AM on April 11, 2008