The Litter Tray

Feature

AI is optional

Choose which AI rules may read new comments.

Switch off every AI rule and the tray carries on with everything that doesn't need AI: text and pattern rules, name patterns, viewer standing, probation, the archive, alerts, moderating by hand and YouTube Studio triage. Sentiment and spotting video requests need AI, so they stop until you switch those rules back on.

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An illustration of the Rules screen. AI rules and non-AI rules have separate controls.

Outcomes

What you can do without AI

Rules and viewer controls carry on

Text rules, Pattern rules, name patterns, viewer standing and probation all work without AI. They match the exact words and patterns you gave them.

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.

What stops

With their AI rules off, the tray stops scoring sentiment and sponsor mentions and stops picking up video requests. What it already recorded stays where it was.

The path

How it works

  1. Open Rules

    Go through the AI rules that are switched on. There isn't one switch for all of them.

  2. Switch off the AI rules

    Switch off each AI rule you don't want running, including AI Video ideas.

  3. Leave the rest on

    Everything else keeps going: checking new comments, the archive, Text rules, Pattern rules, name patterns, viewer standing, probation, alerts and YouTube Studio triage.

  4. See what has stopped

    A rule that relies on an AI rule you've switched off stops matching new comments. Sentiment scores, sponsor scores and video requests stop coming in too.

  5. Switch one back on when you like

    Turn an AI rule back on when you want it to read new comments again.

  6. The ideas digest is separate

    The ideas digest can still work from video requests the tray saved recently, even after you switch off the rules that read comments. It runs about monthly on Free, weekly on Solo, and daily on Creator and Studio, and it stops making suggestions once there are no recent requests left.

Keep going

Useful for

Use cases and plans

See all features

Mike, the founder of The Litter Tray

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 valued the community that built up around my channel, but the volume and intensity of the comments were overwhelming.

When trolls started taking the time I wanted to spend with that community, I dusted off the toolkit and built The Litter Tray around the rules and restraint I wanted for my own audience. I want other creators to get set up in minutes, set the rules that matter to them, and make persistent trolls much harder to miss, so they can get back to making videos.

Mike