How to improve Livestream viewing experience

[Yoga Penguin]

First, I want to say (I'm sure) we all love the live streams and the content that Slick and Linus produce, and tonight's stream was no exception. It was great and entertaining and the guest from Fractal Design was really awesome. However, especially near the end of the stream (<20 minutes or so before the end of broadcast) the chat was absolutely riddled with spam, and increasingly it was a select few of people just typing gibberish or pimping their own youtubes, twitters, and streams. This really annoyed me because of the lack of action from the mods. There were 7 online in the viewers list (not counting Linus himself considering he is hosting) and they were absolutely silent until AFTER the broadcast ended. While I agree that having an active chat and discussion going within that chat is good, people spamming "asdklhlkfdjhe awerlhjkajsd cxziuov husdhflsah" and stuff about following twitters for giveaways is definitely useless to the overall environment of LinusTechTips on twitch.

If I can offer suggestions to whomever ends up reading this it would be these:

Set up rules for the stream and chat. Such rules could consist of:

• No spamming
  
• No racism
  
• No pimping other media unless constructive (Unrelated twitters, youtubes, streams, etc)
  
• Respect mods as well as Linus and Slick
  
• Don't ask for mod for whatever reason, don't complaing about being timed out (because if the mods are doing their jobs, it was for a good reason)
  
• Don't be an asshat (this one's important)
  

Something else that might be good (although few would actually read it) would be an FAQ section. Maybe things like Linus' personal rig specs, Slick's personal rig specs, links to everyone's channels (youtube, twitters, facebook groups, etc.)

Of course, I have no idea what Linus and Slick's idea of the stream should be, how moderated it should be, etc. but personally I think some of these ideas would be beneficial for the viewing experience as a whole. I hope I didn't sound condescending, standoffish, or superior to anyone reading (because I can assure you I'm not).

Have a great night everyone and thanks again Linus and Slick for another great stream!

[MegaDave91]

Full screen the stream or separate it from the page so you don't have to see the annoying chat.

[FamedKarma]

Nice post man. I agree with a lot of your ideas, but I also think a lot of the chat issues have to be down to the current mod team; like you said, they were basically inactive until post stream. Whether it's a case of requiring more regular mods, or the current mods taking a more hardlined approach, I think this is the first solution. Also, I'm fairly sure it's a function of twitch to be able to disable links; maybe if this was done to non-followers or something of that nature, channel spam would be reduced a tonne. Not sure if twitch has that sort of functionality though.

[Glenwing]

Full screen the stream or separate it from the page so you don't have to see the annoying chat.

There's a "hide chat" option as well.

[Irontheater]

Just to add to the discussion, the broadcaster (or mods) can see how to activate XanBot (by typing !join to your chat, and different commands exist to set it up), an anti-spam bot, who deletes any kind of message that has spam in it. Be it CAPS, successive repeat of a letter (sssss), use of lots of puncuation, racism, forbidden words, he can filter them all.

Let's not forget the built in "Slow Mode" in the Twitch chat which limits spam a lot by limiting messages to 1 per person per X time (say 1 minute, or 90 seconds).

It's not the mod's jobs to baby-sit the chat. I imagine even they would want to watch the stream because of some pretty interesting topics they talk about, in interesting ways. They could remove some spam that doesn't get caught by the Bot, or stop flame wars in the chat.

And Chat rules will not affect anything if they weren't reinforced to the letter by a Bot, who instantly deletes spam.

[ixi_your_face]

I agree with above, however on the subject of the mod team, I personally will not treat them any differently than anyone else, it's just a general rule. I mean, yeah, they hold some sort of magical banhammer power so what? They're people, and saying they should be treated higher than anyone else is pretty draconian in my eyes. Other than that, I would like to express my hatred of slowmode, or the way the mods are using it now, over a minute until you can say anything again? If your having a conversation, it's near impossible to keep going at those speeds. Maybe keep the slowmode to a smaller 15 or so seconds, it's noticeably less, but i feel it would be sufficient.

[Irontheater]

If your having a conversation.

I understand that this is the internet, and it's a free world where you can do what you want on it, but for those new to Twitch, the Chat system is not for having conversations. It's just to add to the Stream experience. If you have a question for the Broadcaster, you ask it there, want to make a remark, as a small question for the chat, something wrong.. yes.

But imagine 2,000 people having a conversation, in the same place, at the same time, in the same room. No too logical, eh?

For regular casual stuff, don't forget about the forum's IRC (it seems that no one uses that even though it might be more useful than most think.)

Remember guys, in IRC you could chat with the whole crowd, or have a private exchange with someone.

If you wanted to talk to someone on Twitch and didn't want to bother changing to IRC, you can easily PM him with an easy Left-click on his name and clicking on "message".

I'm pretty sure this does not limit from the Stream experience, but instead adds to it since the exchange becomes closer, and you won't be covered by the Spam of the other 2000 people.

[Dim]

To be honest, I pay close attention to the twitch chat while watching the live stream (I need to remind Slick to mod me) but realistically, there's a huge issue with moderating twitch chats. Essentially, it comes down to the fact that it's a 90-120 minute stream (which is short, considering it's weekly) in which the chat goes so quickly it's hard to isolate any one individual.

Like ixi_your_face said above, we are only human; none of us are infallible. Honestly, when it comes to the Twitch chat, I don't really bother to talk to people much. The chat moves so quickly, you're instantly lost in the wave of messages. A lot of people ask questions on the Twitch chat that are much easier answered on the forums - questions like "HD 7870 or GTX 660 Ti" need more information.

There are thousands of people watching the streams and it is extremely difficult to handle any one incident or any single individual. I agree that all of these rules you've mentioned are useful, but honestly here is the rule to rule all rules: be mature and be polite. There's nothing wrong with friendly banter, but the viewerbase IS mature and we can expect them to follow these basic rules.

Personally, I watch the live stream for the live stream. I might talk to a few people, or give some suggestions in terms of quick questions, but in the end the text moves so fast even with slowmode on that it pretty much makes me disinclined to bother. I would rather communicate through the forums, where I can read everyone's opinion and I can read everyone's questions and respond to those who are yet to receive a response.

The interaction on the Twitch chat is for 90 minutes a week and really this is not very long at all.

[codytappen]

We also have an IRC and a Teamspeak server that can be used during the stream which have good administration and no spam to begin with.... I personally hang out in both during the stream anyway I'm saying there are better chat options.

[Antoin315]

Yo, do you know about the time that the livestream is uploaded to the archive?

[Irontheater]

Antoin: http://www.twitch.tv/linustech/b/372849785

Since the stream is not yet up on Youtube AFAIK, you could watch it from the Twitch archives.

[EricX2]

The chat is the only part I dislike about the live stream. It is so hard to follow that Linus himself doesn't even pay attention to it, even when people tell him stuff like the sound cuts out when he has his settings wrong and isn't realizing it or he went 30 minutes past without actually starting the stream.

After the second live stream I watched I disabled the chat, it makes the video bigger anyway.

[Yoga Penguin]

Full screen the stream or separate it from the page so you don't have to see the annoying chat.

While I know that this is an option, I don't think just hiding the problem is beneficial (ever). I would much rather have a better community for us all to enjoy.

[Yoga Penguin]

Just to add to the discussion' date=' the broadcaster (or mods) can see how to activate XanBot (by typing !join to your chat, and different commands exist to set it up), an anti-spam bot, who deletes any kind of message that has spam in it. Be it CAPS, successive repeat of a letter (sssss), use of lots of puncuation, racism, forbidden words, he can filter them all. Let's not forget the built in "Slow Mode" in the Twitch chat which limits spam a lot by limiting messages to 1 per person per X time (say 1 minute, or 90 seconds). It's not the mod's jobs to baby-sit the chat. I imagine even they would want to watch the stream because of some pretty interesting topics they talk about, in interesting ways. They could remove some spam that doesn't get caught by the Bot, or stop flame wars in the chat. And Chat rules will not affect anything if they weren't reinforced to the letter by a Bot, who instantly deletes spam. [/quote']

Twitch has a variety of really great bots to get rid of the white noise posts. Good point.

I agree with above' date=' however on the subject of the mod team, I personally will not treat them any differently than anyone else, it's just a general rule. I mean, yeah, they hold some sort of magical banhammer power so what? They're people, and saying they should be treated higher than anyone else is pretty draconian in my eyes. Other than that, I would like to express my hatred of slowmode, or the way the mods are using it now, over a minute until you can say anything again? If your having a conversation, it's near impossible to keep going at those speeds. Maybe keep the slowmode to a smaller 15 or so seconds, it's noticeably less, but i feel it would be sufficient.[/quote']

I think slow mode would be ideal in this situation but definitely at a lower time limit, somewhere around 10-15 seconds. As for your misgivings with treating people differently, maybe the rule should be changed to "treat everyone respectfully." Problem solved.

Dim, while I understand it can be had to moderate such a fast moving river of information (I have experience in being a twitch mod) many of the problems present would be solved by either bots+active mods, mods+longer slow mode, or bots+short slow mode. While I can sympathize that it's hard, there was literally ZERO interaction or moderation from the mods within the last 10-20 minutes of the stream which just led to disaster.

PS good morning from the lazy west coast