During live discussions or events, it is important to manage question and comment moderation well. It can help keep the discussion on track, ensure the content is valuable, and help make it fruitful and productive for everyone involved.
Part of managing audience content moderation is ensuring that it is done transparently. Transparency builds trust between the organiser and audience. Within a company, transparency fosters employee engagement, and makes employees feel like they work for a business that cares about their people.
Here are some best practices to help you moderate audience content in a transparent way, and answer the age-old question: should I allow audience members to ask questions anonymously?
Best practices on how to create an environment for transparent moderation
Run a survey or hold a focus group about the rules of engagement
How do your employees feel about having company-wide discussions? What are their expectations for these discussions, and how do they feel about moderation? Get some people to share their thoughts before the discussion so that you get an idea of what perceptions you’re dealing with, what expectations need to be managed, and which need to be met.
Be transparent about having moderation at your event or meeting
Don’t try and hide the fact that you will be moderating questions. Instead, address it straight on before the event starts. This manages attendees’ expectations early on, avoiding feelings of being cheated or censored.
Share the reasons behind it
If you’re planning to moderate questions, be sure to be transparent on why you’re doing it. Part of transparency is opening up on how decisions are made. Have it in writing and posted in a public forum. If your attendees disagree with your reasons for moderating, give them a channel to address it productively.
Be transparent about the framework on which questions will be moderated
By sharing a list of rules of what questions may not be addressed or displayed, you will be setting people’s expectations on whether their questions will be addressed or not.
You could even go an extra mile and reply personally to people who have had their questions dismissed with the reason for its dismissal. This will show that thought has been put into the subject, and that there may be a more appropriate avenue for their question other than this discussion.
| During the event, our panel of moderators will be dismissing: |
|
Make sure that the people doing the moderation are trained
To ensure that the discussion is fair, ensure that the people in charge of moderating questions are prepared to do so according to the guidelines. This ensures not only that they are able to recognise and dismiss harmful or inappropriate questions, but also that they don’t dismiss questions that may be uncomfortable or difficult to answer. Allowing these questions to be asked during meetings shows a willingness to have a meaningful discussion, and that moderation isn’t merely for the convenience of management.
Address dismissed or unanswered questions
After the event, be sure to acknowledge that there were questions which were not addressed, either because they were dismissed or there was a lack of time. This helps them feel acknowledged, and encourages question-asking in the future.
You could even share the numbers of questions asked, and, out of that, how many were dismissed or simply unanswered.
Alternatively, you could address each unanswered question directly. Pigeonhole Live’s direct replies tool allows you to reply the asker to explain to people why their question was dismissed:
| Your question was dismissed for the following reason: |
| Duplicate questions, for the purposes of streamlining questions |
Our Answers tool also allows you to provide text answers to questions, allowing you to answer questions even after the event is over.
Change the attendees' question view
Instead of choosing which questions to dismiss, you could also opt to choose which questions to answer and display. With our new Q&A view for attendees, you can modify attendees’ view to only display the questions that they ask.
This option, while disallowing people to vote for their favourite questions, could be useful to keep the focus on the presenter as the questions are being answered.
Should I allow anonymity?
There are both pros and cons for allowing anonymity. Whether anonymity is allowed would depend on the needs of the company. Anonymity can help create a safe space for conversations that may be sensitive, especially if employees fear repercussions (career or social).
Allowing employees to ask questions anonymously also allows the questions to be answered at face value, removing any social context that may come with asking the questions openly. This puts everyone on an equal playing field, regardless of seniority, job function, race or religion.
It also helps employees who are shy or soft-spoken ask questions that are important to them. If they don’t feel comfortable putting themselves in the spotlight, whether because of preference or culture, anonymity can give them a voice.
But there are instances where people may choose to abuse their anonymity to say potentially harmful or offensive things. Anyone who’s spent enough time on the internet would know the extent that people would go when given total anonymity.
If you choose to allow anonymity, consider question moderation. By creating ground rules and filtering out offensive or unproductive comments could help guide the conversation to a productive place.
