Hacker News Reader

Comment by nsxwolf | Hacker News Reader

I liked the comment system on YouTube provided I wasn't looking at random viral videos with 1M+ hits. On a lot of the channels I subscribed to, the discussions were respectful and interesting.

Since the G+ fiasco, I have absolutely no idea what's going on. I get asked who I am by this popup that shows me 6 different choices, mostly duplicates, over and over. The thing is just never done with me - always demanding I jump through some new hoop.

View on HN

I eventually caved and created a G+ page for my "channel". It is annoying how many times YouTube asked, but the result is quite satisfactory. The sharing settings actually seem pretty reasonable to me: whenever I interact with YouTube, Google is very clear about who will see my content (the "Public" icon from G+ is reused when posting a comment, +1s and upvotes are explicitly mentioned as being public, and so on), and having a "page" for my "channel" lets me not use my real name on YouTube, which I irrationally do not want to do. (jrockway is fine. A two-word Real Name is just too damn formal for trolling YouTube.)

Overall I do not think this is such a terrible thing; as someone who used G+ pretty actively before the comment system merge, I do see a lot of relevant comments on YouTube videos I never would have seen before, and since I would probably be sharing the videos I like to G+ anyway, it doesn't bother me that my comments show up in both places.

It would be interesting to invent a time machine, go back in time, and try doing the merge the other way: fold G+ into YouTube. G+ users probably wouldn't be mad, since they already use YouTube, and YouTube users probably wouldn't be mad, since they wouldn't notice anything changing. But whatever, the current version of the integration is fine with me, once you decipher what "page" and "channel" mean.

Please leave a disclaimer stating that you work for Google, as your GitHub[1] says that you do. Thanks. :)

[1] https://github.com/jrockway

Googlers should be banned from HN as they skew many Google-related threads / comments a bit too much.

You're right! This single, reasonable opinion from one of the thousands of informed people who happen to work on a wide variety of products from this particular company threw the discussion way off! I'm glad we have your reasoned opinion to put things in perspective. Now, how about we go burn down Mountain View?

People take those disclaimers way out of context, so I avoid them. (Google my name to see how I learned this the hard way.)

Most long-time readers of HN know where I work, and I target my comments in that direction, rather than to anyone that happens to stumble upon this page. My apologies.

Nothing I see on the first couple of pages of Google. A link might be more helpful.

I assume it is this that he is referencing: http://searchengineland.com/google-clarifies-no-ads-shouldnt...

Yup! Makes me look pretty dumb, doesn't it :)

(Also: never go up against the SEO blogs! They have good SEO! :)

I'm not sure avoiding putting a disclosure of interest will avoid that sort of thing. I think when discussing anything related to your employer you need to be really careful.

Opinion should always be disclosed as such with disclosure and probably normally a disclaimer that it your personal view and not that of your company although if it is a statement of pure fact I think it is OK to post anonymously and/or without disclaimer.

Your comment about G+ above is very much opinion.

A factual statement correcting another post "you can now do X by going to Y" in response to a complaint that you can't do X is for me fine even if related to your employer and you don't disclose anything.

Working for myself now means I don't have to worry about contradicting my employer or embarrassing them, it is a nice freedom to have.

This is a controversial change, and praising the new system while neglecting to mention that you work for Google risks coming off like astroturfing, regardless of your intentions. I think enough people can be reasonable and take your opinions into consideration even if your employer is the topic of conversation.

That's fine. It's good to consider the source of the argument in addition to its content. I take a neutral view because I don't really care one way or the other; if this was jrockway Inc., I might not have done the change in the same way. But perhaps that's why there is no such thing as jrockway Inc., and there is a such thing as G+ and YouTube. Who knows.

I caved too, but I still don't understand what it is exactly I agreed to, and the system still isn't done with me. I keep getting popups forcing me to choose one thing or another. My eyes just glaze over and I randomly click something just so I can watch a video now.

But I don't want those things to be public or tied to my real name in any way. Or use Google+.

That's completely reasonable. I don't want to use my real name under YouTube either.

My YouTube page is this: http://www.youtube.com/user/jrockway1

Can you figure out that it's related to my G+ profile, https://plus.google.com/115192122236060613729/posts?

For me, it's separated enough, but I can totally understand that not everyone would agree.

The hoops are also confusing (at least to me). It gives you a few options, but doesn't tell you which option you should choose if you want to keep things the way they currently are...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com