Lessons Learned for Online Health Community Moderator Roles: A Mixed-Methods Study of Moderators Resigning From WebMD Communities.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Online health community (OHC) moderators help facilitate conversations and provide information to members. However, the necessity of the moderator in helping members achieve goals by providing the support they need remains unclear, with some prior research suggesting that moderation is unnecessary or even harmful for close-knit OHCs. Similarly, members' perceptions of moderator roles are underexplored. Starting January of 2013, WebMD moderators stopped working for WebMD communities. This event provided an opportunity for us to study the perceived role of moderators in OHCs.

Objective

We examine the OHC members' perception on OHC moderators by studying their reactions toward the departure of moderators in their communities. We also analyzed the relative posting act

SUBMITTER: Huh J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5034150 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature