What you mentioned regarding comments on these platforms hold true on all. Even comments on blogs, this one included, are subject to search engine queries. A dumb comment might follow you around for a long time.

I’ll do a little research on some of the points you highlighted to confirm and make my readers aware.

Nice post. But it primarly focusses on the potential use of Ideascale for the initiator. I didn’t read that many negatives. And believe me there are many.

A friend of mine participated on a Ideascale platform under his real name. Stupid. This ideascale platform was the opengov.ideascale.com. In the spur of the moment he wrote a lot of nonsense. Giving his opinions and spoofs on government policy. This platform was being heavily used. The result it had on Google was immense. Not one of his heavily used social networks could top this platform. So now he’s screwed (pardon my french). Whenever he is Googled, this nonsense pops up.

Besides this, the platform doesn’t even have a opt-in opt-out usage for mail. Once you participate you get mail as long as this platform is active. And once you have written something you can’t delete it. You don’t have an account which you can cancel.

So the reference to Ideascale being a bottom-up approach can in this case be taken literally.

Kind regards