Multi-dimensional Moderation in Online Communities: Experiences with Three Norwegian Sites

Online-communities and user contribution of content have become widespread over the last years. This has triggered new and innovative web concepts, and perhaps also changed the power balance in the society. Many large corporations have embraced this way of creating content to their sites, which has raised concerns regarding abusive content. Previous research has identified two main different types of moderation; one where the users have most of the control as in Wikipedia, and the other where the owners control everything. The media industry, in particular, are reluctant to loose the control of their content by using the member-maintained approach even if it has proven to cost less and be more efficient.

This research proposes to merge these two moderation types through a concept called multidimensional moderation. To test this concept, two prototype solutions have been implemented and tested in large-scale discussion groups. The results from this study show that a combination of owner and user moderation may enhance the moderation process.