This morning I read a blog post about employee engagement. That in itself is not much of a surprise, the Engage for Success web site was launched this week and there’s a fair bit of commentary doing the rounds.
I left a comment on the blog post and was met with the disheartening words ‘your comment will be published pending approval’ or words to that effect. And that is intended to engage me how exactly?
It strikes me that involvement is something that tends to engage people, and I believe that being able to comment in the moment on a blog, is part of what makes good blogging. And when I am able to comment without moderation I feel more trusted for sure. Here’s something I lifted from the Engage for Success website – they call it an enabler for engagement:
There is employee voice throughout the organisations, for reinforcing and challenging views, between functions and externally, employees are seen as central to the solution.
I like the thinking behind this and to some extent I expect some organisations, particularly those larger, well established ones, may need and even appreciate a hand and a nudge in the direction of better ways to work. And for those of us who are perhaps somewhat less constrained by ‘the way we’ve always done stuff around here’, I think we can help serve these aspirations by being more accessible and more open.
For your every day blogger about town like me and many others, unmoderated comment is certainly immediate and whilst others clearly differ, I think it’s much more engaging too. And that’s kinda what this Engage for Success stuff is all about – isn’t it?
Hi Doug:
I like the idea of open voice and more engagement. I hate approving but I do it. I have had literally hundreds of comments that attempt to sell phones and other things that I won’t mention here. On the Employee Engagement Network, you can’t join unless you are approved.
If I removed that process we would have roughly 3 to 4 spammers joining every day! Yes I reject 4 request every day because of the potential harm to members (hacking) or inappropriateness.
Yes our employee engagement network could be around 9000 members now but I sure would not spend any time there if it was a wide open free wheeling place to have people keep selling me cell phones, xxx stuff, and suggesting I have a million dollars waiting for me if I just send $100 right away. Or worse hacking into my site and creating so much damage.
Of course it is nice if you comment section can recognize you, if you commented before and just offer automatic approval. After having my site hacked (all 1700 posts) I am more cautious now. I hope you don’t think I am trying to thwart free speech and opposing opinions but I also don’t want inappropriate or spam comments to proliferate. I guess my compromise is to try and approve ASAP.
Staying engaged,
David
I read Doug and went “yeah! Unmoderated is the way! Boo to all those who put things in the way”
Then I read David and thought “oh yeah, hadnt thought of that”
So as long as moderated doesn’t mean censored or altered and as long as its done quickly (so as not to lose the momentum of the discussion), I now get it.
So today I learned something …… Cool 🙂
Hello David and Chris – thank you both for your comments.
David, as I wrote this piece I thought of you and the EE Network. There were a few things I removed from the first draft.
One was an acknowledgement that larger networks and organisations may come ‘under fire’ and may (albeit reluctantly) have to take some kind of action.
I also scribbled about my experience of helping with a community on the Ning platform. In this instance (as in yours), members apply to join and are either approved or otherwise. The network I help with is smaller than yours and still it gets bombarded with spam, so I appreciate where you are coming from. I didn’t include this because I think approving people to join a community within which they can freely play is different from moderating blog comments.
The third piece I wrote and then deleted was about tools like Akismet and Captcha – which from my experience seem quite effective at blocking spam blog comments. I get roughly seven pieces of spam on here for every one bona fide comment, and pretty much every single one gets blocked.
So from my own experience there are differences between moderating a network approval process and moderating blog comments. Your experiences serve as a useful balance David. I’m grateful you wrote such a helpful piece, and perhaps I shouldn’t edit myself so harshly in future.
Doug, I think this is a perfect way to reflect how organisations often unintentionally sabotage their own attempts to engage.
There must be spam filters that can do most of the job of blocking the rubbish to enable frank comment.
Thanks for popping by and commenting. From my own experience – I agree, certainly so far as blogs are concerned 🙂
Cheers – Doug
And yet the CIPD themselves managed to block a positive review I made a few years ago since I mentioned the word “Dyke” several times in my comments about “Greg Dyke”.
Weirdo! 😀
That’s a good one Peter, I wonder how many others have been blocked for similarly wonky reasons?
Thanks for your comments Doug. Well said. Nice to see so many unblocked comments.
Well some years ago one of my staff complained about internet censorship at work. The firm recognised the demands it put on people and allowed a degree of personal use including shopping. He was a musician and needed to restring his guitar. He was OK until he got to “G”. Work it out! 🙂
Twang! Brilliant stuff – thanks Ian 🙂
I agree with the idea, Doug, but like other blog owners here, the bulk of the comments I receive are spam. As a result, I’ve been forced to moderate, lest my readers be unable to find the valuable content amongst the junk.
Now for companies which have internal discussion boards and blogs behind a firewall, they shouldn’t have this problem. So the scenario where you’re engaging with EMPLOYEES should be more controlled, and therefore, more open to participation.
Hi Carl – lovely to hear from you again thanks. I use Akismet to filter out the spam, I get about seven spam comments for every real one and Akismet has filtered out way over 15,000 spam comments for me. I can only recall about four ever getting through the filter. So for me – using a spam filter means I can continue with my unmoderated approach – for now at least.
I love your point about internal systems – being more open to participation, I ought to take a look and see how that works out in practice.
Cheers – Doug