This could be an interesting experiment. YouTube is working on a new profile card option which would display a full listing of any users' comment history, within a specific channel, when that users' name is tapped/clicked.
As you can see here, the new listing would display the users' full comment history on that channel - not their entire comment history across the platform overall. that might come as a relief to those who have a penchant for composing pithy, yet potentially offensive, YouTube comments.
The test was announced on YouTube's Creator Insider channel last week - as per YouTube:
"We're testing out a new feature where if you're reading a comment on a video, you can learn more about the commenter. It'll include recent comments left by this commenter on the channel, within the last 12 months. It will not show comments that that viewer has left on other channels, but it will help you kind of get a sense of what this person is writing, and we hope that it will strengthen connections with others in the YouTube community, and will help creators recognize some of their best commenters."
So again, the idea is not so much about revealing people who leave questionable comments across YouTube, but more about building community. If you click through and you can see that the user, for example, normally posts constructive comments, you can better measure if and how you should respond.
If, on the other hand, you find that the user always posts negative, critical remarks, they may not be worth responding to (dependent on your approach).
And as noted by TechCrunch, it can also help in assessing people who should become “approved users”, who's comments get published automatically, without requiring approval.
The feature is now in testing, along with a new test of a personalized message option for users who are likely to become subscribers, in order to see if that added personal touch helps increase subscriber counts.
You can get more info on YouTube's latest test, and read creator responses here.