Google launches community moderation program called YouTube Heroes

YouTube just launched a program that rewards volunteers for improving the YouTube community in various ways. Participating in the community gains users reward points, and there are five tiers of heroes. Points are awarded for flagging videos as part of the YouTube Trusted Flagger program. The Trusted Flagger program is invite only, and gives select users more advanced flagging tools. Users can sign up for the Trusted Flagger program here. Points are awarded for adding subtitles and captions to any videos. This makes the videos accessible to more people, including those who cannot use speakers, or those who cannot hear. Helping out other users and responding to queries on the YouTube Help forum also awards points to Heroes. Level 1 unlocks the Heroes dashboard, and access to the community. Level 2 Heroes get exclusive workshops, where they are better trained to be community moderators. Users can also participate in group video conferences for Heroes. Level 3 unlocks new tools, including the ability to mass flags videos, and moderation of comments.

Level 4 allows users to contact YouTube staff directly, and get a sneak peak of new feature releases. Level 5 is the top Hero tier, and allows users to test new features before release. The YouTube Heroes program is currently in Beta. Interested users can sign up here.