The Commonplace platform has received millions of responses. As a result, we've been able to establish an understanding of normal and irregular respondent behaviour.
Our platform is the only one in the community engagement space to operate a soft account creation process. We have developed this to balance two needs:
Maximising engagement and conversion rates
Prioritising trust in the platform
The Commonplace platform does not require respondents to sign up or log in before starting to respond to a survey. Instead, we request their email address, during the flow. There are various points in the journey where a respondent can add their email address and give their consent to receive further communication.
Respondents will never be asked for a password. Instead, we verify / confirm via a verification / confirmation link. If a respondent wishes to log back in to their profile in future, this will also be via a verification link.
When respondents provide an email address for the first time on a Commonplace, it will first be checked against a deliverability database, before it is even accepted. This checks for basic syntax errors with email addresses and works to detect higher risk email addresses, for example, those that belong to temporary email address providers.
After providing a valid email address, respondents will receive a verification / confirmation email with a verification / confirmation link, so that we can confirm they are who they say they are before publishing their response (except on Hidden Comments projects). We also recommend that you take caution when evaluating contributions from respondents who didn't provide an email address (over 90% do give their email address) and those who haven't confirmed their contribution (usually below 10%).
In addition to the verification methods described above, we've developed GamingAI to detect and block respondents who do not comply with our Acceptable Use Policy. See our separate article for details on ModerationAI, which checks for abuse, profanity etc.
GamingAI is designed to understand non-human or gaming / disproportionate campaigning-style behaviour on the platform. We analyse a large number of browser-based and response-based metrics to identify and block suspicious users. They will be notified and they will be offered the opportunity to request a review if they have been blocked. We will review each case manually.
We have a large number of rules already built into GamingAI. People and bots are always looking for new methods or approaches to circumvent these kinds of anti-gaming measures. If you're interested in seeing which individuals have added the most comments, you can look in your Analytics Dashboard at the number of comments or agreements submitted by each respondent. If you suspect any suspicious activity in your Commonplace responses, please let us know so that we can investigate this. We are always looking for ways in which to enhance our GamingAI.
Still unsure about anything? There's lots more information here on the Commonplace Help Centre - alternatively, contact the support team and we'll be happy to help 👋
