a study out of the university of missouri-columbia’s school of journalism has found users prefer to have messages moderated in communities/boards.

they have also found people are more likely to contribute if the following are present:
- moderators (so conversations won’t get out of control or get nasty)
- interactive messages (ie comments get commented on)
- messages posted at a slower rate (so there’s not the feeling they need to respond right away before the topic gets lost by another topic. they can take their time replying)

while the study looked at ‘participation intent’ and not real participation, i would agree with their findings. moderators are usually not appreciated until there is a need for them, people always like to be acknowledged and speed isn’t always a good thing. the study looked at website community participation but i think it also applies in a work atmosphere on blogs, wikis or any collaborative space.

there’s good details on the research at the uni’s site and the study has been published in the journal of cmc: article here.