Law Commons^™

Facilitative Moderation For Online Participation In Erulemaking, Joonsuk Park, Claire Cardie, Cynthia R. Farina, Sally Klingel, Mary J. Newhart, Joan-Josep Vallbé

Cornell e-Rulemaking Initiative Publications

This paper describes the use of facilitative moderation strategies in an online rulemaking public participation system. Rulemaking is one of the U.S. government's most important policymaking methods. Although broad transparency and participation rights are part of its legal structure, significant barriers prevent effective engagement by many groups of interested citizens. Regulation Room, an experimental open-government partnership between academic researchers and government agencies, is a socio-technical participation system that uses multiple methods to lower potential barriers to broader participation. To encourage effective individual comments and productive group discussion in Regulation Room, we adapt strategies for facilitative human moderation originating from social …