Does commenting on news articles encourage traffic?

[Gemmamysoc]

Q: Does commenting on news articles encourage traffic?

There are often articles that have used FOI to obtain interesting data/findings. Like this example. Does adding comments to articles like this (that allow them) encourage people to click through onto the Alaveteli site?

Measurement

We'll keep a record of the urls of where we've commented, and look at Referrals in Google Analytics to see if anyone has used them to click through to the site.

What do we need to do to be able to take the measurements?

• Research/keep an eye out for articles that we are relevant to comment on
• Comment on articles
• Keep record of article urls
• Wait a while, and then look at Referrals on Google Analytics

[Gemmamysoc]

I have today commented on this article: http://honisoit.com/2016/07/sydney-university-estimates-340-unreported-sexual-assaults-a-year-according-to-new-data/

[Gemmamysoc]

Have submitted a comment on this article: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/scott-morrison-outspends-joe-hockey-in-11625-budget-night-kneesup-20160808-gqnk21.html

[henare]

Have submitted a comment on this article: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/scott-morrison-outspends-joe-hockey-in-11625-budget-night-kneesup-20160808-gqnk21.html

@Gemmamysoc did your comment get published? I couldn't see it.

[Gemmamysoc]

Hey :) I submitted it for approval - I haven't heard yet whether it's been published on the article. Will let you know any updates

[Gemmamysoc]

Gah, comments are now closed and mine wasn't approved :( Perhaps too 'spammy' for them

[Gemmamysoc]

Have posted a comment on this article, but no hyperlink: http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/sa-health-keeping-identities-secret-of-eateries-that-are-among-worst-food-standards-violations/news-story/a594c0e0677a3496ca2667f89afe1352

[henare]

Gah, comments are now closed and mine wasn't approved :( Perhaps too 'spammy' for them

How strange - I guess they only accept ranty politics comments :wink:

[Gemmamysoc]

Have submitted a comment for approval for this article: http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/food/accc-investigating-thermomix-over-injuries-to-owners-after-foi-request-by-news-corp-australia/news-story/d478dca4555f1caff1cd2421c0e587c3

[Gemmamysoc]

Have posted a comment on this article

[garethrees]

Lets aim for comments on 10 articles and then see what traffic comes through those

[Gemmamysoc]

Have submitted a comment for approval for this article: http://www.theage.com.au/business/workplace-relations/nsw-victoria-investigate-7eleven-over-payroll-tax-20160922-grmn67.html

[henare]

I have today commented on this article: http://honisoit.com/2016/07/sydney-university-estimates-340-unreported-sexual-assaults-a-year-according-to-new-data/

That may have interested the editor as he posted this about RTK recently https://twitter.com/tomrjoyner/status/779148362163507200

[Gemmamysoc]

Have commented on this article: http://www.woroni.com.au/news/anu-moves-to-decrease-dependence-on-enrolments-from-china/

[Gemmamysoc]

Tried to comment on this article, but need to be a paying subscriber to do so!

[Gemmamysoc]

Have submitted a comment for approval on this article: http://www.theherald.com.au/story/4224995/government-planned-for-land-claim-approval-over-king-edward-park/

On 26 September 2016 at 12:08, Henare Degan notifications@github.com wrote:

I have today commented on this article: http://honisoit.com/2016/07/ sydney-university-estimates-340-unreported-sexual- assaults-a-year-according-to-new-data/

That may have interested the editor as he posted this about RTK recently https://twitter.com/tomrjoyner/status/779148362163507200

— You are receiving this because you were assigned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/mysociety/alaveteli-experiments/issues/94#issuecomment-249541760, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AGfaM5PbvNCQuTceeIHpsim1AmxeRKkHks5qt6e_gaJpZM4JblWe .

Gemma Humphrys

Events Manager /* Alaveteli Partnerships Manager *

mySociety | mysociety.org http://www.mysociety.org/

[Gemmamysoc]

Have submitted a comment for approval on this article: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/duncan-gay-should-be-stripped-of-responsibility-for-road-safety-20161111-gsniot.html

[Gemmamysoc]

Have submitted a comment for approval on this article: http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2016/11/foi-denied-rbaapratreasurer-shield-internal-property-interests/#comment-2750120

[Gemmamysoc]

Here are some results:

Out of the 11 articles I submitted comments to, only 6 were approved. From the 6 comments that were published, traffic (18 sessions) came to RightToKnow only from this article:

The traffic that came from this comment on this article resulted in 4 request annotations, 1 person playing the categorisation game, 4 status updates, 4 report requests, 1 message to a user (13 goal conversions in total). Also, the bounce rate for the traffic is very low - 11.11% (compared to 63% site average), so this suggests that this type of traffic is highly engaged.

[Gemmamysoc]

Just as an aside/for info, I saw that 16 new users came to RightToKnow from clicking on a link in a comment on this article, see screenshot:

And 6 new users came from a comment on this article, see:

[henare]

@Gemmamysoc thanks for running this experiment Gemma! Even if the results have been a bit disappointing it's really good to know :smile:

[garethrees]

The latest comments are interesting. I was a bit skeptical that this experiment would bring much traffic. What I didn't really consider is that the traffic it does bring might be high quality. The other commenters seem pretty engaged so might turn out to be good users for RTK, and spread the word to their social network. What will be interesting is to see how many requests came through these sources in a years time.

[garethrees]

Posted on 11. Only 6 comments were approved.

[Gemmamysoc]

Summary:

Ideally it would be great to figure out if users that came to RightToknow from above comments threads then went on to become engaged/regular users of the site. However, it seems too hard/time consuming to figure this out, as I don't think the 'Make an FOI request' goal was set up at time when the users came to site, so can't see if they went on to make requests. It would also be difficult/potentially creepy to find out the user ID of these new users, to see if they went on to make other requests or do anything else on site.

It's probably worth still commenting about RightToKnow on comments threads that are already busy with engaged citizens when we see them, but not worth commenting on threads that aren't populated already.

[Gemmamysoc]

Just added another cheeky little comment to this article as it already has 45 comments on it: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/judges-receive-pay-rises-amid-claims-ice-addicts-adding-to-their-workload-as-cases-increased-in-complexity/news-story/28a8ff7958e4304667e1dae00b764075 Wonder if people will actually click through :)

[Gemmamysoc]

Posted a comment on this article: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/02/steep-rise-police-requests-opal-data-nsw-public-transport#comment-88673681

I still get Google Alerts telling me when Australian articles mention FOI, so I am aiming to post comments on the ones that already have a lot of commenters.

[Gemmamysoc]

If anyone is a subscriber to The Australian, this article could be a good one to comment on ;)

[Gemmamysoc]

My comment on above Guardian article has bought 5 new users to the site. There have been 9 goal conversions: 3 request annotations, 3 request status updates and 3 report requests. The bounce rate is pretty low - 33.33% - compared to the 63.50% average for the site. This might imply that these users found the site more engaging that the average new user.

[Gemmamysoc]

I have updated my above comment with new, more positive results :)