What it is and what it's for#
Conversation is the screen that measures what people say inside the programme: comments on challenges and on news items, replies, reactions and the moderation queue.
It doesn't measure volume for vanity. It measures two things that are fixed in different ways:
- 1
Whether there is a conversation
How many people take part and where. A programme with no comments is a noticeboard.
- 2
Whether the conversation is attended to
What goes unanswered and what sits in moderation. Asking and getting no reply teaches people not to ask again.
The header makes it clear from the outset: activity is measured over the last 28 days, but unanswered debt is carried up to 90 days back. They are two windows on purpose: activity from three months ago can no longer be acted on, an unanswered question from three months ago can.
This screen replaces any comment count you may have seen elsewhere. If a number here doesn't match another panel, this is the right one.
How it's set up#
There is nothing to configure. The screen calculates itself from the conversation in the project you are in. What you decide is which indicator you open and what you do with the list of people behind it.
The six indicators#
| Indicator | What it counts | How to read it |
|---|---|---|
| Comments | Volume for the period. | It is the context, not the target. It serves to make sense of the rest. |
| People commenting | How many distinct people take part. | It is the real indicator of conversation. Many comments from few people is not a community. |
| Unanswered | Comments nobody has replied to. | It is debt, and the most expensive kind: someone asked and got nothing. |
| Response time | How long it takes to reply for the first time. | A slow figure explains why people stop writing. |
| In moderation | Messages held back awaiting review. | While they are in the queue, they don't exist for anyone. |
| Reactions | Light interaction. | It rises before comments do: it is an early signal. |
The actionable indicators have their own entry point: See who they are takes you to the people, See the queue to what is waiting to be moderated.
Unanswered and In moderation are queues, not metrics. They are emptied by working them. If they grow week after week, the problem is not participation: it is that nobody has been assigned to deal with them.
What to do now#
Below the indicators, the screen writes recommendations from its own data and orders them by urgency: unanswered comments, moderation queue, people who have stopped commenting, drops in activity and slow replies. It is the week's task list.
Daily activity#
The curve for the period, broken down between new threads and replies. Both numbers matter: many threads and few replies is people talking to themselves.
Where the conversation happens#
The table that says which content something is happening on:
| Column | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Challenge or news item | The content being commented on. |
| Comments 28 d | Recent volume. |
| Unanswered 90 d | Debt built up there. |
| Last | How long ago the last comment was. |
Each row can be clicked to see who has commented there.
The two middle columns look at different windows on purpose, and that is why the header says so. Content with little recent volume and a lot of debt is a topic that was abandoned halfway, not a dead topic.
Participation by location#
Location, People, Commenting and %. The same logic as everywhere else in the programme: the project average doesn't tell you where to go, the difference between sites does. Each row opens the people at that site.
Silences#
The silences card does not list everyone who doesn't comment — that is almost the whole workforce and is no use at all. It lists whoever was commenting between 90 and 28 days ago and has stopped.
It is the indicator with the best effort-to-result ratio on the whole screen: winning back someone who already took part costs far less than activating someone who never did.
The detail behind an indicator#
Clicking an indicator or a row opens a list of people. It always has Person, Location and two columns that change depending on what you opened: the comment text and its age if you are looking at a specific conversation; the comment count and the date of the last one if you are looking at people; the time In queue if you are looking at moderation.
What happens next#
This screen is for management: the employee doesn't see it. What they see is the consequence of what you do with it.
- An unanswered comment that you reply to appears in the thread, with your name, where the person left it.
- A message in moderation that you approve becomes visible to everyone else; if you reject it, it never gets published.
- Someone on the silences list that you write to receives your message through whichever channel you choose: there is no automatic sending from this screen.
Replying late counts as replying, but it doesn't undo the damage. The response time indicator comes down when replies happen the same day, not when the queue is emptied all at once, once a month.
Frequently asked questions#
Why is the response time empty?
Because there is nothing to measure in that period: no reply to time. Empty is not zero.
Why are there more comments than people commenting?
Because the same person comments several times. The gap between the two numbers is exactly what has to be watched.
Do comments in moderation count as comments?
They have been written, but nobody has seen them. Treat them as pending, not as conversation.
Can I find out why someone has stopped commenting?
The screen tells you who and since when, not why. For the why, the route is to ask; the pulse and surveys help narrow it down.
How many comments are enough?
There is no good figure. What holds up is the proportion of people taking part and that the unanswered debt does not grow.
Limits and warnings#
- Activity looks at 28 days and debt at 90. They are labelled in each column. Don't compare one with the other and don't add them up.
- Indicators with nobody behind them don't open. Comment volume and response time are aggregate figures: there is no list of people that corresponds to them.
- The moderation queue has no window. What goes in there stays until someone reviews it, however old it is.
- Silences exclude anyone who never commented. It is a win-back list, not a recruitment list.
- The cuts by location depend on the person's record having a site. Anyone without one does not appear in that table, though they do appear in the total.