Special SNEAK PEEK: The Future of Community Captions?

Hello Insiders! Today we have a special Sneak Peek where we need YOUR feedback. Check it out and let us know your thoughts!

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Creator Insider is an informal YouTube channel to share information from the YouTube Creator technical team with the wider Creator community. We will feature different people talking about the products they work on and changes we are making so you have more context. Please note this is not an official YouTube channel and is an experiment.

TOM: Hello, Insiders!

This week, I have a special guest.

I've got James,
who's working on

some very important
captions planning.

Welcome to the show, James!

JAMES: Hey, Tom!
Thanks for having me.

TOM: It's good to have you back, brother.

Now today,
we're gonna talk

about...community captions.

And what we're...

We're gonna kind of be a little

more transparent than
we usually are

around some of
these types of projects.

Because we're...
we're taking a hard look

on whether we should,
sort of,

continue supporting them,
or not.

And that's...
that's a pretty big decision.

So maybe...
can you give folks

a little bit of background on

what is this feature,

why did we do it,
and, you know,

why are we...why are we
thinking about it now?

JAMES: Yeah, absolutely. So...

First, kind of as you said before,
this is something...

This is a new experiment
that we're trying here.

We do hear pretty often
from creators

that big decisions get made
without necessarily

creators feeling like
they have a chance to give input.

So, we are using this opportunity

to take a step back
and ask creators what they think

about a decision,
before it gets made.

And so, we are starting to

think about whether or not
we continue to have

the Community Captions feature,
or whether or not

it makes sense to shut it down.

Before I go into more detail
about that,

let me just, kind of,
clarify a little bit

what that means.

So, there are three ways

that most creators
get captions or subtitles.

The first, that many of you
are probably familiar with,

are automatic captions.

And those,
for a number of languages,

just happen automatically
on your video.

Second, many of you
upload them yourselves,

in some way, shape, or form.

And then, the last way is

there's a Community Captions feature, that...

where you can opt in and allow

anyone on the internet
to come and suggest

captions for your video.

And it's really the third one
that we're wondering

if it makes sense to continue.

Or if the effort
that would be spent,

kind of, building and maintaining it

would be better spent
on other features.

TOM: Right. And in fairness,
it's probably...

We're leaning
in the direction of...

of deprecating it.

And so this is
a very important conversation

because we also know
a lot of creators

feel passionately about captions.

This idea of

anyone in the world
can help you caption your video,

and then translate it,

and make it kind of
more accessible

is an amazing vision.

Like, what do you think is driving

our contemplation of

why we wouldn't continue
supporting that feature.

JAMES: I couldn't agree more with
how you framed it.

The reason that we're considering it
ultimately comes down to

not that many creators are
ultimately using it.

Just to be totally transparent,

less than 1/1000th
of a percent

of channels approved
a community caption track

in the last month.

And so we actually went
and started to talk with channels

about why they aren't using it.

Particularly ones that had
used it in the past.

Or were large enough
to have an audience for it.

And some of the things
that we heard were

"Well, I really love that it exists."

Right? Everyone...everyone is
positive on the theory.

And then they'd say "But..."

And they'd say things like,
"But I've had problems with spam".

Or "It's not reliable enough for me".

If we wanna have
the most accessible product possible.

For as many different people.

We want creators to have
the widest possible audience for their videos.

This Community Captions feature
isn't accomplishing that goal.

Even though it sounds
really great in theory,

it only works
for the biggest channels,

and then there's problems with
spam and abuse,

and then people turn it off,

and then consequently,
it's not on that much watch time.

So only about 0.2% of watch time

has a community caption track on it.

And so, that's what has us
leaning towards

actually shutting this...
this feature down.

TOM: I guess some people
may wonder, like,

"Hey! Well just leave it alone.

"Just leave it as is.
Like, why don't you just...

"You don't have to
spend any more time on it.

"Like, just let it be."

JAMES: Unfortunately,
that's not the reality.

I think it is...

There's some pretty significant costs
to keeping it.

And I think we have
a responsibility to

make sure that we're investing
in the places

that will have the most,
kind of, return on investment here.

TOM: I totally get
where you're coming from.

And I hope others who are listening
understand too.

Like, part of the reason for this video
is to say "Hey, look!

"If there is an angle
we haven't thought about..."

You know, of course
we're gonna keep an open mind,

but we ultimately wanna do
the best thing

for the creator ecosystem overall.

Where are we going with
the future of our captions roadmap?

JAMES: Yeah, I'm glad you asked.

So, we absolutely are not
getting rid of the ability

for a creator to upload

captions or translations
to their channel.

Like, that's not even in
the consideration set.

There's a bunch of work
that's continuing to happen

on automatic captions.

Making them more accurate.
Supporting more languages.

Making them better support, kind of,
punctuation and grammar.

Capitalization.
And stuff like that.

We're coming at this from
wanting to have

the most accessible platform possible.

It's purely about
how do we get there,

in a way that's safe for the platform,

safe for creators.

And, you know, these are...
These are the hard questions.

TOM: Yeah, that's a great point
about the trade-offs.

Because if you're hearing this
and you're like,

"Well, I'll vote for keeping it."

What you're also voting for is

less improvements to
the experience for creators

to upload their own captions.

Less improvements
on the automated captions.

Less improvements on the ability to
refine the automated captions.

Setting aside this community captions stuff,

when you think about
where you'd like to see captions go forward,

what are some of the things
that you're kind of excited

for us as a team to consider?

JAMES: We are working on
a new captions editor,

that I am really pumped for.

We actually have some creators

out there using a alpha version,

for the first time right now.

I'm really excited to see
a tighter integration

between what the creator does
and auto captions.

And maybe the creator, auto captions,
and Google Translate.

There's opportunities maybe to extend
some of our permission tools.

Some of the creators
I spoke to said,

"Well actually, I don't use the project...
the product the way you intend.

"I have my three people
that caption all my videos.

"And I only approve things
that they write.

"And I would much rather
just be able to

"send them an invite
from Permissions,

"you know, to be able to kind of
access only the captions.

"And that would be a better workflow
for me and my team."

TOM: With that said,
are there any other questions

that you have, James,

that you wanna hear
from the audience?

That they can give us feedback on,

in terms of
how we're thinking about this.

JAMES: Yeah, we would love it
if people would weigh in here.

The best type of feedback
you can give us

is information about why and how
it would affect your channel,

if you don't think
that we should do this.

One more thing, if I could,
I do wanna just say

we realize this is a tough conversation

and we thank you guys
for having it with us.

TOM: You know, James,
it just occurred to me that

the other thing that
we should mention is that

this is a bit more...

a new format of an Insider video.

Like, usually it's

"Hey! Here's some
cool new stuff coming."

This one is a little bit
further upstream

in the product development process.

And so, if you guys watching this
have feedback

on, you know...

If you wanna see this much
of the sausage making. (LAUGHS)

Like, you know, we could
try and do more of it.

I think the risk is always, like,

well you're never gonna make
everyone happy

and then people are
gonna be pissed,

if you go in a different direction.

I think we're taking a bet here.

That being more transparent

and putting all
the cards on the table

might help us
make a better decision,

based on the input.

JAMES: Yeah. This is brand new.

First time we've done
something like this.

At least, as far as I know.

TOM: So, make sure you subscribe

to Creator Insider,
if you want to go

behind the curtain.

And...(LAUGHS)
and really get involved

in our product development.

This is definitely
"Inside Baseball" stuff.

But, hopefully,
some people find it helpful.

All right you guys,
keep it real.

We'll see you next time!
Thanks James!

JAMES: See ya!