Dealing with abusive / harassing youtube commenters?

[smbaker]

This is a first for me, I have a guy wandering around to random videos leaving comments calling me names. What do other bloggers do about this? Do you just ignore them? do you block them? do you report them? My inclination to date has been to ignore him. Today I took the step to report the comments and to block him. This would be the first time I've had to block someone, and the first time I've ever reported a comment.

The odd thing is, it appears to be a fellow electronics enthusiast, and I generally think of our community as being relatively well-informed and respectful. The times when people do disagree within our community, it's often on something of substance. This person, aside from looking up his profile today, I do not know who he is, and to my knowledge I've had no prior communication or interaction with him, nor am I aware of any work he has done.

Scott

[KhronX]

I guess regardless of where the majority / average is, there's always gonna be outliars  But still, "specimens" like that do indeed need dealing with, one way or another.

[elecman14]

I just turn the comments off for the videos that I upload. It solves the problem but might not be the solution for you.

[Mr. Scram]

I just turn the comments off for the videos that I upload. It solves the problem but might not be the solution for you.

The comments left under electronics videos can be great and as valuable as the video. Not having them means opportunities lost.

[smbaker]

The comments left under electronics videos can be great and as valuable as the video. Not having means opportunities lost.

I agree with this. Many comments have led me to try new things that I wouldn't have tried otherwise. Someone sees a video on "X", and says, "Y is a reasonable step from X, you ought to try Y also". There's also often suggestions about alternate strategies, people who point you to their related work, questions for clarification, etc. The youtube community and its comments can be useful and I'd hate to lose that in the general sense.

Youtube does seem to have a moderation capability, so maybe that's an option to keep the noise low.

[IanB]

I think if people leave rude, nonconstructive comments under your videos you should just delete them without responding. The comment area is your "room", you can eject people if you don't like them being there.

[Brumby]

I think if people leave rude, nonconstructive comments under your videos you should just delete them without responding. The comment area is your "room", you can eject people if you don't like them being there.

You don't have to tolerate being insulted. Block them. Report them if necessary.
If you don't know them, then it is very likely they are doing it for reasons known only to themselves.

As for the electronics community being well-informed and respectful, I like to think that too. Doesn't make it true though.

Agree.

Kill those aggravated comments.  Block the person if they continue.

Sometimes you might get some genuine gripes - and if you can, leave them as a show of your broad-mindedness ... and a reminder that there may be some areas for you to improve.

However, there is no obligation for you to suffer outright abuse.

[Radio Tech]

I get the occasional smart remarks from folks at times. Not many but it does happen.  If you ban or block them they can "spoof" their IP and still come back, but with even more attitude.  I have found it best to just hide their comment.  No one sees it but them.

What gets me the most is down votes. Not just on my channel but other folks channel. Someone uploads a video on how to repair a piece of gear with lots of detail, and some jack wagon down votes it. I know it is any ones opinion and they have the right,  but I see this happen in the first 30 seconds of upload.

[Stray Electron]

  You always have to consider that the person leaving the comment is one of your competitors and they're doing to to damage your reputation in order to steer viewers to their channel.  That's been going on on the net for some time now regarding reviews of brick and mortar businesses.  About a year ago I saw on the news that one company was awarded several hundred thousand dollars in damages because one of their competitors posted hundreds of fake negative reviews before the first company had even opened for business.

  Youtube needs to track the true identity of those leaving negative comments and see if they're posting excessive numbers of negative reviews or if they're targeting only certain other people.  You can sort of do that one E-bay yourself since you can look at the feedback that others have received and the feedback that they have left for others.

[joeqsmith]

This is a first for me, I have a guy wandering around to random videos leaving comments calling me names. What do other bloggers do about this? Do you just ignore them? do you block them? do you report them? My inclination to date has been to ignore him. Today I took the step to report the comments and to block him. This would be the first time I've had to block someone, and the first time I've ever reported a comment.

The odd thing is, it appears to be a fellow electronics enthusiast, and I generally think of our community as being relatively well-informed and respectful. The times when people do disagree within our community, it's often on something of substance. This person, aside from looking up his profile today, I do not know who he is, and to my knowledge I've had no prior communication or interaction with him, nor am I aware of any work he has done.

Scott

I used to let all the comments remain but it eventually reached a point where other viewers were starting to react to them.   Anymore, if someone posts a personal insult to me or another poster, I just block them without a second thought.

If a person attempts to use my channel to advertise themselves, I may warn them but normally I block them.

There are people who also want to argue about the tests I run.  If they are able to do this without making a personal insult, I may take the time to try and help them understand.  Many times this works out. 

You may want to consider adding a link to your channel in your signature.

[metrologist]

how did you piss off Uruguay?

[SeanB]

Only 6 people there watch, and 4 of them do not like Joe's US accent.

[joeqsmith]

how did you piss off Uruguay?

Same way I piss off everyone.  Recently a few RC people were upset because I referred to their "hobby grade something or others" as toys.  They could not believe I would be so ignorant about the subject.   

Some people have comment how I am taking perfectly good meters that were useful and destroying them which they see as a waste.  I ran a poll, and there is a fairly high percentage that saw no value in the testing and would like me to stop running them.

Some people get pissed because I may damage a particular meter and attempt to improve how robust it is against these tests and then do not show the details of how to do it.   

I suspect many are pissed when I take their beloved meter, that they have trusted and cared for, maybe saved 10 years for, and put it through the tests and it gets damaged at a levels as the free ones from Harbor Freight.   

IMO, for now we have one oddball meter, that's the Fluke 87V.   When I was testing the Gossen meter, a member here was getting upset, posting about how I was on some sort of witch hunt.  I was expecting more backlash from the 87V fanboys.  So far they remain civil.   
 

Only 6 people there watch, and 4 of them do not like Joe's US accent.

YT doesn't provide enough metrics to really tell much.  Some time ago, a person wrote me about how they suspected one person was doing much of the down voting.   I provided them with the little data YT can provide and for the most part, things are random.   

If we look at the Canada, my current leaders in down votes,  we can see in 2 votes on one video and singles for all the others.   We can also see that one person is subscribed and rest are not.   If I look at the type of system they are using, we will see things get a bit more random.  Sure there's trends but I don't think you could ever be certain and it really wouldn't matter anyway. 

[@rt]

If you don’t see any work he has done, how do you determine he’s an electronics enthusiast? Because he watches those sorts of videos?
I’ve never received that kind of comment from anyone who actually has any YouTube history, and therefore,
I don’t think much of it on the occasions where it does happen.

One comment left by a stranger in reply to one of these types of comments on an earlier video I did (maybe up to ten years ago):

"Those who can, do. Those who can’t, mock those who can.”

I have to generally agree.

[smbaker]

If you don’t see any work he has done, how do you determine he’s an electronics enthusiast?

After I saw the comments from him, I checked his youtube profile to see what videos he had created, and there were some electronics-related videos. Nothing I have watched or care to watch after his behavior, but the titles were sufficient for me to conclude he was likely a fellow enthusiast.

"Those who can, do. Those who can’t, mock those who can.”

Agreed. I've received the occasional insult before, but I've never paid much attention to them, as they've resolved to youtuber's whose profiles don't show significant created content.