Process moderation

The pragmatic focus was to keep the discussion structured and productive and at the same time mobilise the greatest possible number of participants. This was important in order to test the large-scale feasibility of the prototype as well as it's ability for structuring discourses. While constantly creating publicity and producing incentives for the users, the DEMOS team had to moderate the forum and lead the discussion through the three pre-set phases. Also the users had to be aided in adapting to the relatively sophisticated graphical user interface. The team was able to tackle these obstacles without any greater problems, also making use of the immense self-regulating forces generated by the virtual community.
Throughout the process 228 registered users produced more than 1200 postings, resulting in a highly differentiated discussions on relevant subjects in the various forums. The constructive output of the discussion was condensed and represented in an interactive document called DEMOSdoc, that contains the opposing views and arguments as well as solution strategies (it can be accessed further below). The last phase ended on the 14th of December 2001.

Next