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Moderating Communities Encourages Site Participation
People are more likely to contribute to an online community when a moderator is present and when the messages are interactive and posted at a slow rate, claims a November 2006 University of Missouri-Columbia study. Even the "quiet" presence of a moderator assures potential posters that the community will not fall apart or be "hijacked" by people with malicious intentions. Alternatively, participants are drawn to communities where there are high levels of interactive postings, but only if the response rate is slow enough to give "lurkers" a sense of opportunity to add something to a discussion.
Because online communities have the propensity to become either inclusive or exclusive -- to the detriment of increased participation -- it is important that companies, marketers, and brands understand which features encourage participation, and to cultivate those features in their own online communities.