Moderation and Facilitation

All online engagement sites will have some form of moderation in place to monitor user-generated content. This is partly a legal consideration, but is also motivated by the desire to create inclusive spaces and deliberations with momentum. Moderation is not a byword for censorship.

Administration

There are two types of moderation available:

• Pre-moderation: where all user-generated content is checked against the terms and conditions before they are published;
• Post-moderation: where all user-generated content is checked against the terms and conditions after they are published.

If a pre-moderation policy is in place on a blog or forums – where interaction is usually asynchronous – the expectation is that during the working week all posts will go live within 24 hours of submission. Posts made during the weekend will go live on the following business day. For webchats – or where the interaction is in real time – the aim should be to publish user-generated content within 10 minutes.

A ‘moderator’ is internet jargon for somebody who is responsible for making sure that the rules of engagement on a site are respected. ‘Moderation’ commonly refers to the mechanical aspects of publishing or unpublishing user-generated content. Moderators also have important facilitation responsibilities (covered below), which are visible rather than the administration aspects, which take place unseen in the site’s community and content management system.

Each exercise should have at least two moderators to share the workload; three is ideal, and one is feasible. Where there is more than one moderator, a lead role should be assigned to one of these individuals. This individual will be a named point of contact and will assign roles to the others (where appropriate).

It is recommended that moderators be government representatives and, ideally, policy officials with a strong grasp of the subject matter. However, additional, supporting moderator roles may also be assigned to expert stakeholders or particular public users.

Moderators should aim to check content queues at regular intervals throughout the working day; a minimum of three times is recommended. Moderators should also aim to make their own interventions into a deliberation at least twice a week; however, these should always be substantial contributions and not simply for the sake of ‘being seen’.

Facilitation

In 1999, the Hansard Society outlined its first classification of the facilitation roles performed by moderators; these have been refined over time. In this guidance, five facilitation functions have been classified as follows:

• Host;
• Manager;
• Referee;
• Librarian;
• Reporter.

Facilitation roles are best understood as strategies, which should be adopted to achieve different objectives over the course of an online deliberative exercise. Not every role will be used; each exercise will require different degrees of moderator intervention and role application.

Host

Often the first duty of a moderator will be that of ‘host’. During the lifetime of a consultation a community of participants is created. However, the platforms hosting these consultations can be alien, barren spaces. Certainly this is the case in the initial stages as the deliberation picks up momentum. The people who constitute the community will all start as strangers to one another; they may remain that way throughout.

The acclimatisation that comes with every new community may not faze all participants, but could concern and dissuade others from getting involved. Moderators in the ‘host’ role can ensure that everyone knows why they are there and ensure that the platform retains an atmosphere conducive to deliberation. The host-moderator can make everyone feel welcome, ensure everyone has what they need, that everyone feels positive towards participation and that they are aware of the context within which the deliberation is taking place.

As the exercise progresses, moderators can make sure that the momentum and interest are sustained. This could include bringing up fresh, interesting points, ensuring that alternative perspectives are aired or introducing new pieces of evidence for consideration.

Manager

Online engagement exercises are held for specific purposes. There are cost considerations, time constraints, targets and objectives in mind. These become increasingly important considerations for those involved in policy formation. Moderators have an important ‘managerial’ role to play in this respect.

In the planning stages of any engagement activity, timetables should be constructed and critical points identified (such as the airing of a relevant television programme or the close of deliberation within a certain topic). Moderators should pay close attention to this schedule (even if a separate project manager exists) and be sure to provide users with reminders where appropriate.

Referee

In addition to clear timetables, good engagement exercises require clear definition of rules and etiquette. This is an acknowledgement of the proliferation of peer-to-peer interactive platforms (some of which are formal and others informal) without the parallel development of a universal set of rules of engagement.

Participants should be required to formally acknowledge the discussion rules at registration or before submitting content. Even so, disagreements can occur and provide tense encounters, some of which, given enough fuel, could potentially overrun the deliberation exercise.

Here ‘deliberation’ is defined as structured group discussion where one expresses one’s experience, ideas or views whilst acknowledging that they may be challenged for the benefit of reaching a judgement or making a decision. Therefore, ‘conflict’, ‘dissent’ and ‘disagreement’ are all, to some extent, legitimate factors in good deliberative consultations.

Yet, despite the fact that argument and constructive criticism are integral to productive debate, participants who are inexperienced in debating, or the specific subject matter, may find this aspect of deliberation difficult to deal with. At the other extreme, there may be those who spoil for an argument or are so convinced by the faultlessness of their views that they react negatively to disagreement.

Pre-moderation allows the moderators to identify potentially antagonistic or unlawful posts prior to publication. If a comment contravenes any of the discussion rules do not publish it (or unpublish it, if using a post-moderation strategy). Posts should be returned to the participant by email, along with a reference to the broken rule(s). The participant should then be invited to make appropriate changes in order that the post can be reconsidered. However, if a participant repeatedly breaks the rules that participant’s user account can be suspended and may be permanently revoked.

Most unconstructive arguments are avoided through use of a pre-moderation policy. Moderators should be even-handed and should allow a free-flowing discussion as far as possible. More often than not, where moderators are visible, participants can be ‘self-moderating’ and even on occasion self-policing, in that where disagreement occurs between individuals, other participants step in to remind them of the rules, request supporting evidence, and ask for clarification or restraint.

Participant-to-participant moderation should be informally encouraged but it should also remain the policy for the referee-moderators to have the overall authority and responsibility to resolve conflict. This is because at the root of qualms around group deliberation is a fear of being challenged, berated or singled-out in the public domain. These fears put some off group participation. Of course, this was one of the motivating factors behind online consultations – that people could participate anonymously, that they could do so from ‘comfortable’ surroundings, at any time and with the ability to leave the debate without ‘loss of face’. However, it is clear that although the parameters of online deliberation are different to those of face-to-face or voice-to-voice meetings, there is still a human apprehensiveness that reduces participants’ willingness to contribute.

Moderators in their ‘referee’ role are there as a reassurance to participants. They exist so that participants know that as long as they stay within the general rules and context of the topic, they are able to say what they want without provoking a personally-motivated attack. They know that they are able to challenge those contributions that they believe are wrong, in need of further qualification or could be superseded. Online interaction can be kept secure, structured but non-sanitised, and the only way that this can be sustained is if the participants have trust in the facilitators to be fair and decisive.

Expulsion of participants is rare – if such a move is necessitated, all participant details and a record of contributions will be stored. This is in large part a result of having moderation planned in early on, a clear statement of moderator responsibilities and a set of terms and conditions for participants (see the foot of this section).

Librarian

It is desirable for moderators to have expertise in the subject matter of the exercise. This is largely a requirement of good chairing. The ‘librarian’ role is about encouraging use of evidence, facts and figures by participants and to signpost useful information as part of the ongoing responsibility to facilitate informed deliberation. The ‘intervention’ of the moderators in this respect should be reinforced by a set of rudimentary background notes and suggested reading for users to refer to.

Some engagement spaces can become complex due to their popularity, frequency of posts or deliberative phases. To prevent the integrity of the deliberation structure unravelling or becoming too complex to navigate, moderators must observe ‘janitorial’ responsibilities.

Again, the scope of these duties is largely defined by the sophistication of the technology being used. Systems should allow the moderators to manage the consultation spaces by the likes of re-sorting out of place posts, clearing incomplete or garbled posts and closing overpopulated threads.

The librarian-moderator is ultimately responsible for securely archiving and retrieving data – be it participant contributions or survey data – and this is all about ensuring good database construction and maintenance thereafter. The moderators should also ensure that posts are stored in their entirety (no matter what their form or content). This is the case even if a post contravenes the consultation rules and is unsuitable for publication. Moderators must never edit participant posts without permission from the individual participant.

Reporter

The final role that will be set out here is that of the moderator as a ‘reporter’. This is another significant responsibility and likely to be the one role that is present in every exercise that has moderation woven into its structure.

Over the course of the exercise, moderators must methodically summarise the deliberation. This involves identifying key posts that stimulated a debate, perhaps contained vital information, aired an alternative view or completely re-orientated a discussion. Copies of these summaries – best compiled weekly – can be published online as much for the benefit of latecomers as for veterans. It is also useful from the perspective of ministers whose resource limitations and procedural regulations may prevent regular, consistent participation.

However, a more important aspect of the reporter role comes with the close of an exercise. At this point, it is the responsibility of the moderators to provide an overall summary report of the deliberation that is both independent and accessible. Summary reports do involve constructing a narrative to illustrate the deliberation behind the results, but in doing so the moderators must conduct themselves with the same detached objectivity with which they approached the other roles.

The final role of the reporter-moderator is to manage expectations of participants by outlining a timetable for feedback and then ensuring that the feedback is either posted directly on the site or passed on to participants via email or post.

Evolution

Moderation is a discipline in evolutionary flux. As online engagement exercises move from their developmental phase and become a mainstream feature, there will be increased pressure for regulation of moderators’ qualifications and skills. This will be difficult to achieve in a way that will be suitable for every application of moderation. Nevertheless, a set of core skills may include:

• tolerance;
• integrity;
• empathy;
• objectivity;
• capability to carry out conceptual thought;
• good listener;
• attentive;
• observant;
• attention to detail;
• composed nature;
• confidence in mediation abilities;
• strong problem-solving ability;
• high level of ICT literacy;
• cross-cultural awareness;
• excellent researcher;
• strong communicator;
• fluency in written language;
• confidence in group and interpersonal communications.

Even in the absence of a set job description for moderators, on each participation exercise a breakdown of responsibilities and an explanation of the moderation policy should be provided for reference by the participants. Alongside this should be included contact details for the moderator team.

A sample moderation policy for an online forum may resemble the following:

*Will X consultation/policy team be participating in the discussions?*
Yes, relevant team representatives intend to regularly visit the forum discussions and where appropriate submit posts to encourage discussion.

What is moderation?
‘Moderation’ is the practice of:

• Facilitating online consultations to ensure that everyone can take part in discussion, get their views across and that the consultation meets its objectives;
• Maintaining the flow of the discussion by checking all posts in relation to the terms and conditions of the site.

What does a moderator do?
‘Moderator’ is internet jargon for somebody who is responsible for making sure that the forum discussion rules are respected.

A moderator is:

• Similar to a chair of a face-to-face meeting;
• There to encourage debate by asking questions but will not offer opinions;
• There to make sure everyone feels comfortable and equal in the online discussion.

Who are the moderators of this forum?
This forum will be moderated by the X consultation/policy team.

The moderators always aim to be fair and objective. Moderators are concerned with the quality of the discussion not the interests of one individual, group or idea over another.

Direct communication between the participants and the moderators can take place via email. The moderators’ email address is…

What form of moderation will be used in this forum?
There are two types of moderation available:

• Pre-moderation: where all posts are checked against the terms and conditions before they are published;
• Post-moderation: where all participant posts are checked against the terms and conditions after they are published.

This forum will employ a X strategy. This means that posts will/will not go live instantly. They will be checked regularly by the moderators.

During the week all posts will go live within 24 hours of submission. Posts made during the weekend will go live on the following business day.

Forum spaces are readable at all times and you can submit a post at any time.

A moderation policy should always link back to the discussion rules. Wherever possible an alternative means by which a user can contact the department should also be provided in case of a dispute.