REACH’s traffic still lags behind alternative sites despite “increase” in views
December 24th, 2009 | 
Author: Written by Our Correspondent
According to a report on Channel News Asia, the government feedback channel - REACH saw a 319 per cent increase in the number of visitors to its website from January to November this year compared to the same period last year.
The majority of the readers were probably derived from the AWARE saga which was deliberately played up by the mainstream media to boost its flagging readership.
It is not therefore not surprising that it was the AWARE saga which topped the list of topics Singaporeans responded to on the REACH website.
Astro-turfing tactics employed by the conservatives to sway public opinion to its side may also contribute to the spike in REACH’s readership in the same period.
REACH Chairman Dr Amy Khor claimed that the “feedback” on REACH was “initiated from the ground”:
“We have got more than two million page views on our discussion threads and various sites on reach website itself and more than 60 per cent of the feedback is ground initiated that means it is not pushed by us but initiated from the ground.”
With due respect to Dr Khor, REACH has been around for a number of years and to garner only two million page views is really a pathetic result not worth mentioning.
In less than two years, the Temasek Review has achieved more than 6 million hits as of today.
Though REACH has reported an “increase” in views, its global and local traffic still pales in comparison to Temasek Review using the Alexa web traffic analysis.
Below are the traffic rankings of both sites on 24 December 2oo9, the lower the ranking, the higher the traffic:
Site Global ranking Singapore ranking
Temasek Review 106,549 650
REACH 667,268 2,624
[Source: Alexa]
If we take away the number of visits due to the AWARE saga, the increase is actually minute since REACH was set up to serve as a link between the people and the government and not to discuss such tabloid stuff.
Dr Khor revealed that REACH will be “enhanced” in 2010 with more interactive platforms and videos.
“Over the last couple of years ever since we revamped the feedback unit to REACH, we have been active on closing the loop, ensuring that and allaying the criticism that it is a blackhole,” she added.
REACH is indeed a “blackhole” – since when did the ruling party ever listen to genuine feedback from the people?
“So a very good example is this foreigner issue. We have had very good feedback on this issue and we have sent it to the relevant ministries and over the last couple of months many government leaders have come out and talked about the concerns about the foreigner issue and what they are going to do to allay their concerns as well as explaining to the public in general why we need to continue with the policy to attract new immigrants.” Dr Khor said.
As evident from the above explanation by Dr Khor, the sole purpose of REACH is to enable the government to explain its policies “better” to the people so that they can “swallow” them with fewer complaints.
Despite widespread unhappiness and disgruntlement on the ground at the ruling party’s liberal immigration policies, its leaders continue to insist that immigration is “essential” to Singapore’s growth and prosperity.
The only way to exert political pressure on the ruling party is to cast a protest vote against them in the next general election to force it to wake up from its complacency and stop taking Singaporeans for granted.
Without sufficient numbers of opposition MPs in parliament to hold the ruling party accountable, there is no way Singaporeans can provide direct “feedback” to the government.
REACH is no more than a “wayang” put up to show the public that the ruling party does “listen” to their concerns, but besides “listening”, nothing concrete will ever happen in Singapore as history has shown.
Besides, it is a “hazard” to post on REACH as you will never know when you will be hauled up by the authorities for posting “dangerous” remarks.
Earlier this year, a garang-guni man by the name of Ng Kim Ngweng was arrested and jailed for six months for threatening to beat up an unnamed MP on a REACH feedback hotline.
There is no point providing feedback on REACH because no serious action will ever be taken on it once the ruling party makes up its mind on what to do.
A more practical approach is to boycott REACH altogether as a form of protest against the ruling party’s policies and express your views on alternative sites like Temasek Review with a high readership to bypass the state censorship and reach out to a wider audience.
Posted in Headlines
20 Responses to “REACH’s traffic still lags behind alternative sites despite “increase” in views”
Loading ...
Alex Tan Allan Ooi AWARE Chee Soon Juan Chiam See Tong Claire Lee David Widjaja DBS Dr Allan Ooi Dr Silviu Ionescu Dr Vivian Balakrishnan Foyce Le Xuan highnote5 Hong Lim Park Jack Lin Xinli Jack Neo Jack Neo affair Jack Neo scandal Josie Lau Josie Lau Meng Lee Lee Kuan Yew Lehman brothers Lighthouse Evangelism MAS minibonds Miss Singapore World NTU stabbing PAP Pastor Rony Tan Ris Low Romanian diplomat in hit-and-run Rony Tan S-League silviu ionescu Singapore Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games Tan Kin Lian Thio Su Mien Tiger Woods affair Tong Kok Wai Top 8 Vivian Balakrishnan Wendy Chong Y O G Youth Olympic Games
WP Cumulus Flash tag cloud by Roy Tanck and Luke Morton requires Flash Player 9 or better.
Congrats! to TR for your achievements thus far.
Please keep it up.
You have the readers standing behind you.
You will never walk alone.
A worthy cause.
Stay true to yourself.
Yes, I boycott them altogether.
the main stream new media, is just as shitty as their traditional counterparts.
Who is REACH? I have never visited them even once in my life.
TR is still my favorite place to comment. So far even if you are critical of TR or your posting doesn’t favor them, they never censor you. If they continue to be in this spirit, very soon they can plan to start becoming Singapokini.
Cheers to TR!!
Like we don’t already get an overdose of propaganda and need even more of it.. Agree with writer that visiting alternative websites is the only way to go.
“REACH is indeed a “blackhole” – since when did the ruling party ever listen to genuine feedback from the people?”
Agreed! That website is only a fabrication..
TR never censors meh? Some of my comments didn’t even get through.
Hi haha,
If you have posted comments during the last few days, some of them may not get through as we were in the process of moving servers and the DNS is being propagated.
Hope that clarifies.
Dear admin,
Some comments were indeed deleted.If TR goes down the path of only wanting to hear what it wants to than it is a path towards self destruction.Sure,TR has the prerogative to delete abusive and otherwise nasty comments but the freedom of speech must be maintained.The more we hear the more we learn.However distasteful.
Otherwise please keep up your good work.
REACH from my FIRST experience seems like a receptacle of numerically-scored storage bin.
It was NOT a complaint but a suggestion as invited by the Government published in MSM.
Received quick standard form feedback that it has been channeled to two Ministries AND THEN COMPLETE SILENCE SINCE THEN from REACH AND THE RELEVANT MINISTRIES.
Maybe they have NO politically feasible solution or don’t intend to implement the politically-infeasible solutions I suggested.
It is a one-way feedback from the ground and a courtesy acknowledgement from the invitation party.
KEEP EXPECTATIONS LOW AND IT WILL BE “SATISFACTORILY” OUT SOLUTION OUTCOME even if the feedback fell into dead silence in subsequent.
TODAY newspaper hit the right nails.
BUT I THINK lots people already ‘move out’ of REACH.
Extract-
The Government’s Reach portal, often cited as a forum for feedback, can certainly be improved.
Take its recent discussion forum on next year’s Budget as an example. While some citizens have posted suggestions, policy-makers have not responded to the thread nor acknowledged the ideas.
If feedback and communication continue in this one-way fashion, it will be a matter of time before active citizenry loses its passion and turns to other channels to be heard.
Merely using social networks to start the conversation does not guarantee success – agencies should be mindful they have the manpower and the will to sustain engagement.
Ideas should be acknowledged while queries should be answered, not “stone-walled”.
===============
TODAY 23 Dec `09
http://imcms2.mediacorp.sg/CMSFileserver/documents/006/pdf/20091223/2312HNL003.pdf
ENGAGING THE PUBLIC ONLINE
FOR the last four consecutive Mondays, Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan’s blog can be likened to a crystal ball on the healthcare priorities for the new year: He pens new thoughts, shares candid assessments, and canvasses feedback and ideas from the public.
Around the world, other policy-makers are also using their blogs to reach out: Australia’s Prime Minister Kevin Rudd seeks views on climate change; Sweden’s Minister for European Union Affairs Cecilia Malmstrom updates citizens on the latest developments in the European Parliament; and Secretary of State for Scotland Jim Murphy writes about Scotland’s future in the Great Britain.
Despite Mr Khaw’s refreshing candour – and public apologies for lapses in services on at least two occasions – sadly, not many other Government agencies are keen on doing likewise.
In a report in this newspaper last week (”Netizens say bring it on,” Dec 18), a MediaCorp check with six Ministries – selected for their “touch points” with the general populace – found that almost all do not have immediate plans to enter the blogsphere.
Most rely on a fallback position, that is to say they are “open” to the use of new media tools. A few went further to say they are looking at “options” without giving their timeline.
A commonly cited reason for not using new media tools was that Ministries and their agencies already have avenues to share policy ideas with various stakeholders.
But this may apply to a select few – such as industry stakeholders and practitioners – while leaving the general populace, the group which Government agencies exist to serve, out of the dialogue.
Citizens, especially the younger ones, want to be heard, they want to be engaged.
A survey by the Singapore e-Government Leadership Centre of 2,500 netizens here last year found that 88 per cent of the respondents felt governments can improve by using tools like social networks, blogs and forums to gather feedback.
The majority also wants to be involved in policy-making, and one respondent even opined the younger generation feel “distant from policy making”.
The Government’s Reach portal, often cited as a forum for feedback, can certainly be improved.
Take its recent discussion forum on next year’s Budget as an example. While some citizens have posted suggestions, policy-makers have not responded to the thread nor acknowledged the ideas.
If feedback and communication continue in this one-way fashion, it will be a matter of time before active citizenry loses its passion and turns to other channels to be heard.
Merely using social networks to start the conversation does not guarantee success – agencies should be mindful they have the manpower and the will to sustain engagement. Ideas should be acknowledged while queries should be answered, not “stone-walled”.
A netizen, who recently queried the legality of flash mobs on an enforcement agency’s Facebook page, was asked to call the Singapore Police Force’s customer relations department instead.
Another who suggested publishing SMS crime alerts on the Facebook page has so far not received any acknowledgement of her idea.
Ministries and agencies which do embark on the use of social media should be aware that the expectations and resultant communication that come with it will be tougher to manage than the use itself.
With changing demographics and technologies, consumption patterns of information and its feedback mechanisms have also evolved.
If policy-makers do not adapt, getting community buy-in on future policies will pose a future challenge.
Public communication should no longer consist of informing the public, and should move towards engaging them and building consensus.
The “what” of a policy may matter, but it may well be the “why” which will hold the key to its success.
For a government that prides itself on being ranked first in previous e-government studies, there’s a need to move the focus from being efficient online towards being involved with the public in a discussion, and being inclusive too.
Below looks like a case of member of public being ’stoned-walled’ by REACH.
EXTRACT-
TODAY Newpaper – 23 Dec ‘09
http://imcms2.mediacorp.sg/CMSFileserver/documents/006/pdf/20091223/2312HNL003.pdf
ENGAGING THE PUBLIC ONLINE
————————–
………………. queries should be answered, not “stone-walled”. ”
==========================
http://app.reach.gov.sg/reach/YourSay/YourDiscussionCorner/tabid/117/ptid/414/page/12/totrecs/124/threadid/2848/forumtype/posts/Default.aspx
How Can A ‘Public Servant’ Ignore The Public? (I am a Guest) said :
How Can A ‘Public Servant’ Ignore The Public?
—————————————————–
REACH Admin Ling,
I hope you are not being selective in forwarding postings at REACH to the respective government agency, as the below was asked twice to be sent to CEO-H.D.B.
Please send it to,
1. CEO-H.D.B.
2. Deputy Director-H.D.B. Chee Kheng Chye.
3. MP incharge of Clementi Ave 5
4. GM, Town Council incharge of Clementi Ave 5
Inform them that an email will be sent to our dear MM and PM if no suitable answer is received by year end 2009.
The issue has been in the TODAY forum since Nov ‘09, and no one replied to public queries at TODAY’s newspaper forum,
after HDB’s horrible reply below.
http://www.todayonline.com/Voices/EDC091126-0000059/Direct-lift-access-not-always-possible–HDB
Kum Siah.
—————————————————————————
-00000000-
[QUOTE]
Chua Richard (I am a Guest) said : REACH Administrator,
The beow should be sent to CEO HDB.
THANKS.
===============================
[QUOTE]
Mr CEO of HDB – WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING? (I am a Guest) said : MR CEO of HDB,
1. WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING?
‘Command Responsibility’ is needed here.
2. The ‘basic’ purpose of LUP is a lift landing at every floor to ensure barrier free-access to the lift to serve the aging population, handicaps on wheelchairs etc.
3. AND NOT TO HAVE LUP WHERE RESIDENTS STILL NEED TO CLIMB STAIRS AFTER LUP CONSTRUCTION IS DONE.
DAMN IDIOTIC RIGHT?
4. It has been mention in a number of Forums online that HDB blocks with similar designs (at AMK, Bedok, Aljunied n Jurong East) to those at Clementi Ave 5, HAS LUP DONE AND WITH LIFT LANDING AT EVERY FLOOR.
5. Singapore can built,
- the floating platform at Marina,
- tunnels, even under rivers and under the ‘CDB’, under Orchard Road etc, for MRT,
- underground KPE expressway that is the longest and most advanced etc, in South East Asia,
BUT HDB CANT BUILT LUP TO ENSURE THE LIFT STOPS AT ALL FLOORS at Clementi Ave 5,
BUT STRANGELY can do so at other estates.
???????????????
6. Deputy Director-HDB, Chee Kheng Chye never replied to query on para 4 at TODAYonline forum SINCE NOVEMBER. Maybe he is waiting for Christmas which is just 4 days away.
http://www.todayonline.com/Voices/EDC091126-0000059/Direct-lift-access-not-always-possible–HDB
[ http://www.todayonline.com/Voices/EDC091105-0000052/?Not-wheelchair-friendly-at-all ].
7. MR CEO of HDB, SO WHY CANT HDB DO THE LUP TO HAVE LIFT LANDING AT EVERY FLOOR at Clementi Ave 5 blocks?
???????????????
Looks like a case where REACH blocked it.
Some feedback agency indeed, never even feedback BUT BLOCKED it from getting thru’ to the government agency.
The ‘Administrator’ there so ‘POWDERFUL’.
The whole reach portal is a joke.
MP needing a portal to receive feedback from the residents.
Have they implemented these feedbacks?
REACH Administrator told not to ’stone-wall’ feedback/queries.
” Dear Reach Administrator , I sincerely hope that Reach having reach millions of viewers pass this issue to MM,PM,SM and the Minster concern to react. Don’t STONEWALL and WHITEWASH the issue please. ”
If you read the below at REACH, you will see that there were 5 or 6 calls to forward to HDB with the query,
‘Why the Clementi Ave 5 blocks cant have lift landing at all floors, but those blocks with similar design at AMK, Bedok, Aljunied and Jurong East can.’
The REACH Administrator dint indicate if REACH inform HDB.
The REACH Administrator DAMN POWERFUL man, can decide whether or not stone-wall/block feedback.
BUT he/she POWERFUL ENOUGH to block public asking to forward query to PM, MM and SM.
=================
http://app.reach.gov.sg/reach/YourSay/YourDiscussionCorner/tabid/117/ptid/414/page/2147483647/threadid/2848/forumtype/posts/Default.aspx
Quote :
RYMAN LIM (I am a Guest) said : Ahem ! I have hold my peace while all are being discussed by the public , but when Mr Wooden Block make HIS exclamations on behalf of H.D.B. that them civil servants have consulted the residents before doing the L.U.P. I wish to differ on that claims of HIS.
Firstly, did H.D.B. ever listened to the public opinions ( the Eunos upgrading is a GOOD EXAMPLE ) . Secondly , even before the voting of the L.U.P. I have clearly informed H.D.B. that I am a handicap on wheelchair and that’ half lift landings ‘design do not meet my needs , they have a ‘think out of the box’ and provide me a safe access to the lift and I even vote for the upgrade as it might benefits the other residents.
When I wrote to the public about the ‘boo boo ‘ H.D.B. make , their deputy director Mr Chee Kheng Chye wrote back on the forum to ask for my understanding and to emphatise their’ technical difficulties’ to provide a lift to every floor at Blk 340 Clementi Ave 5.
What are they bull sXXXing , they do a lift upgrading to every floor at A.M.K., Bedok, and Jurong East Blk 246 all having the same Block design like Blk 3240 Clementi Ave 5 oh ! maybe the only different in that A.M.K. MP is our P.M. , Bedok MP is our S.M. and Jurong MP is a Minister.
H.D.B. and their C.E.O. , Deputy Director and all their ivory deweller only think ‘out of the box’ when they are dealing with P.M. , S.M. and Minister but don’t give a damn to estate hold by a non ministerial grade MP like Clementi ’s Mr Arthur Fong. PLEASE , H.D.B. stop the bootlicking culture and listen to the public requests and ACT accordingly don’t STONEWALL and WHITEWASH your own mistake. Have some guts like Mr Khaw ADMIT your mistake and RECTIFY it and stop wrting useless letter asking for EMPATHY and UNDERSTANDING , can you understand and empathise a poor handicap resident being left behind and condemn to a lifestyle of facing the 4 walls of his flat 24/7 year in and year out.
As the saying goes you pay peanuts you get monkey but I don’t expect that paying big bucks you get orstrick.
Dear Reach Administrator , I sincerely hope that Reach having reach millions of viewers pass this issue to MM,PM,SM and the Minster concern to react. Don’t STONEWALL and WHITEWASH the issue please.
On the contrary, I believe they do keep a look-out for good suggestions to implement. Of course, this is subject to their own preogative on what suggestions to take up, and what not to. The result? Reach ends up becoming a simple idea pool from which to pull out improvement ideas for, probably to satisfy some obscure government benchmark for efficiency or something similar.
The SAF has its WITS project, the rest of the government agencies has Reach.
http://www.todayonline.com/Voices/EDC091228-0000035/Speak-up-as-a-group
Roy,
So ‘REACH’ is like a ‘cover’ to collect ideas?
I don’t believe that they sought out to create Reach as an idea pool to fulfill their internal metrics for improving government services, since the original aim was to engage with the public directly on policy matters that affect the country.
However, once the portal is up, and members of the public began to create threads on the issues that have been bugging them, it looked easy to just use the suggestions from these writers. The good news for them is that they can take the credit for thinking of that suggestion in the first place (I’ve yet to see a governmental agency acknowledge a policy change/implementation credited to a Reach suggestion).
And because Reach does the forwarding of replies from the governmental agencies back to forum thread, it’s quite easy for the agencies to ignore inconvenient criticisms. It can be policies that are sacred to somebody high up in the chain of command, or it could be something that makes absolute sense, but would cause them great embarrassment to admit their mistakes — all these can be easily ignored with a form letter (always saying that they will take the feedback into consideration).
This of course ends up turning Reach into a wall with selective hearing. There’s actually no constructive engagement happening between the people and the government agencies on that website; instead, the public finds itself shouting amongst themselves: and if anyone wants to do that, there’re so many other forum sites out there to choose from. So why stay there?
As for myself, I’ve been to the Reach website. I’ve even created an account there, but for the above-mentioned reasons, I’ve ended up spending more time at The Temasek Review, and other independent sites dealing with matters concerning Singaporeans, than I’ve ever done at Reach.
Roy,
Below is one good example.
Source – http://app.reach.gov.sg/reach/YourSay/YourDiscussionCorner/tabid/117/ptid/414/page/2147483647/threadid/2848/forumtype/posts/Default.aspx
============================
To : Wooden Block,
REACH is reaching a stage where it is starting to be ‘OUT OF REACH”, when it starts to ’stone-wall’ repeated requests to forward query.
Extracted -
” TODAY 23 December 2009
http://imcms2.mediacorp.sg/CMSFileserver/documents/006/pdf/20091223/2312HNL003.pdf
ENGAGING THE PUBLIC ONLINE
………………………….. Ideas should be acknowledged while queries should be answered, not “stone-walled”. ”
oooooooooooooo
Wooden Block said :
Why REACH is NOT good enough ? Are you trying to pitch TOC against REACH ?
http://app.reach.gov.sg/reach/YourSay/YourDiscussionCorner/tabid/117/ptid/414/page/2147483647/threadid/2848/forumtype/posts/Default.aspx
uh huh… (I am a Guest) said : …maybe you’ll all be more tolerant of Reach if you looked at it for what it is and not expect too much.
Look at the PAP track record. How have they slowly but surely subjugated Singaporeans? How have they increased the cost of living here to such a ridiculous level while stiffling our pay? How did they “privatize” all the infrastructure that our taxes paid to build? How have they opened the gates to all these foreign workers in the guise of “talents”? How have they increased their own pay to unprecedented amounts while telling the rest of us that this isn’t a welfare state?
Simple, they use their puppet media – The Straits Times and mediacorp – to push the news out first months in advance as if they are asking for advice from the public. Then they sit back and let everyone yell and scream about it. If the noise gets too loud, they’ll say it’s only a feedback gathering session.
Once the bad news has filtered into all our psyche and they know there won’t be an open revolt, they implement it.
Reach is just a new avenue for them to allow people to vent and scream. Your voices aren’t really heard or given a micro-second’s thought.
Just accept that and keep posting if you want, or just leave the site. Really no point expecting changes and getting upset when the changes do not happen.