Bang the Table

I was interested to read the Sydney Morning Herald’s website stats for 2009 this week.

The SMH (which is the broadsheet newspaper for New South Wales, for those of you elsewhere) allows comments on selected articles and had the following most commented on articles in 2009:

Most commented on story:

1. Roads are for cars, not Lycra louts 478 comments
2. Internet censorship plan gets the green light 459 comments
3. Your call is important to us 435 comments
4. Cyclists do not have the same rights as motorists on roads 412 comments
5. Hated without cause: faith’s high price 363 comments
6. A plague of atheists has descended, and Catholics are the target 331 comments
7. Science cooks the books, driving sensible people to screaming point 316 comments
8. Sharia in Australia: sanity or shocking? 308 comments
9. God is good, but just be sure not to take Him too literally 293 comments
10. Cyber attacks smite atheist websites 287 comments

It is not unusual for these stories to achieve 200,000 plus views (the highest of the year had over 600,000) so the rate of comments to views is in the fractions of a percentage.

One thing that really interested me from the stats was the much higher number of emails received about articles which is much higher than the comments:

Most emailed links: (using the smh.com.au “email this story” tool)

1. Dust turns Sydney sky red 7212 emails
2. Girls of the Tokyo motor show Part II 5268 emails
3. The world’s largest, most expensive cruise ship 3963 emails
4. Obama jokes around with Leno 3739 emails
5. The world’s best airline complaint letter 2429 emails
6. Island caretaker job offer: get paid $150,000 to swim, snorkel 2407 emails
7. On board V Australia’s Boeing 777 1928 emails
8. Yanna and Kosta’s big day 1762 emails
9. Viral email images – True or False? 1598 emails
10. Surf Dog Competition 1559 emails

So why this reluctance to comment on the website and apparent eagerness to email? An email is a direct communication to a newspaper’s editor. Presumably a good number of these emails are aimed at getting published in the letters page. The chances of success are very small. Commenting on a website guarantees you an audience – one might expect that would be both more popular and more effective.

One reason for this might be that the SMH does not allow comments on all its articles – perhaps there is great pent up demand for comment on those stories that the SMH does not select. It is unclear why their editors choose not to allow comment on some stories and to allow comment on others.

Another reason might be that people see much greater import and status in being published in the print newspaper rather than simply having a comment feature on the website. Why? I guess tradition, a sense of the importance of something in print and perhaps a feeling that your voice is really being heard. Certainly there is some merit in this – letters get picked up in media monitoring, I’m not sure that newspaper website comments do.

The reason I don’t bother commenting on newspaper websites is, frankly, because there is no evidence that anybody of any interest is likely to read my comment. Most of these pages read, not like discussions, but like a list of statements. I’m not actually sure anyone is reading, let alone anyone who is likely to be of any influence with regard to the issue being discussed. The comment just sits there.

Something that backs up my theory that people don’t comment on newspaper websites because nobody is listening is the very different results for websites that specialise in community engagement where clearly the decision makers are part of the discussion or are monitoring the results.

Bang the Table’s busiest consultation to date was about removing the rail line from Newcastle. This consultation yielded 2803 comments from around 4300 visitors with those comments coming from around 800 people. Way less visitors than the newspapers and way more comments.

Our most popular issue of 2009 was the Hornsby Housing Strategy which yielded 1152 comments from 4109 visitors.

Another example from another provider is Open Forum’s consultation about Human Rights which attracted over 500 participants. I don’t have visitor numbers for this one but am willing to bet there were nothing like the 200,000 views claimed by the Newspapers.

I think these much higher rates of conversion for community engagement sites demonstrate the importance of listening. If we think someone who has influence is listening to what we have to say then many more people will participate by commenting or voting.

Why is this important? It demonstrates that online engagement requires more than just monitoring what people are saying on other websites. Whilst monitoring is important the evidence shows that providing a space where you are explicitly listening will get many more people, and presumably more viewpoints, involved in the discussion.

Please also read my correction regarding the above

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