Keep rule and viewer controls
Keyword rules, name patterns, viewer standing, and probation continue without AI. Text and Pattern rules keep using the wording you chose.
Feature
AI is optional
Choose which AI rules may read new comments.
Switch off every AI rule and the tray still keeps the tools that do not need AI: text and pattern rules, name checks, viewer standing, probation, the archive, alerts, manual moderation and YouTube Studio triage. AI-only sentiment and video-request detection stop until you turn those rules back on.
RulesExample
Rules
AllAI rulesFilter rulesText rulesPattern rulesProbation
No insults aimed at me; criticism of the work is fine
hold for approval
Spam links to the usual three shops
Automatic Mode
Automatic Mode
Ring the bell for anything about sponsorship
notify
18 matched in the last 7 days
Outcomes
What you can do without AI
Keep the manual work and its record
Moderate, inspect the archive, clear YouTube's queues, receive operational alerts and practise with saved examples without asking AI to read a new comment.
Know exactly what pauses
New sentiment scores, sponsor stance scores and detected video requests stop when their AI rules are off. Existing records remain available.
The path
How it works
Open Rules
Review each enabled AI rule. There is no single master AI switch.
Disable the AI rules
Disable every AI rule you do not want to run, including Sentiment analysis and AI Video ideas.
Leave the no-AI tools on
New-comment checks, the archive, Text rules, Pattern rules, Name patterns, Viewer standing, probation, alerts, and YouTube Studio triage continue.
Know what stops updating
A rule that depends on a disabled AI rule stops matching new comments. New sentiment, sponsor stance scores, and video-request detections stop too.
Re-enable deliberately
Turn an AI rule back on when you want it to read new comments again.
Remember the separate ideas digest
Its ideas digest can still use recently saved video requests after the comment-reading rules are disabled. It runs about monthly on Free, weekly on Solo, and daily on Creator and Studio, and it stops producing suggestions when no recent request remains.
Built by a creator, for his own channel first
I built the moderator my own channel needed.
Hey friends, I'm Mike. My channel grew to 50,000 subscribers, and the comments grew well past 50,000 with it. No one creator can read every comment at that size. I really valued the community that built up around my channel, but the volume and intensity of comments was overwhelming.
When the trolls started taking over the time I wanted to spend with the lovely community around my channel, I dusted off the toolkit and built The Litter Tray around the rules and restraint I wanted near my own audience. I want creators to be able to get set up in seconds, spend a few minutes setting the rules that matter to them, and make persistent trolls much harder to miss, so they can get back to making videos.
Mike