# WHoW: A Cross-domain Approach for Analysing Conversation Moderation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.15551 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.15551/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 11 of its 51 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 21 Oct 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 11 of 11)

- [Longformer: The Long-Document Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.05150/) (2020)
- [Ex Machina: Personal Attacks Seen at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.08914/) (2016)
- [A Computational Approach to Understanding Empathy Expressed in Text-Based Mental Health Support](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.08441/) (2020)
- [DialogLM: Pre-trained Model for Long Dialogue Understanding and Summarization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.02492/) (2021)
- [Multi-Party Chat: Conversational Agents in Group Settings with Humans and Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.13835/) (2023)
- [MPC-BERT: A Pre-Trained Language Model for Multi-Party Conversation Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.01541/) (2021)
- [Conversational flow in Oxford-style debates](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1604.03114/) (2016)
- [Detecting Community Sensitive Norm Violations in Online Conversations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.04419/) (2021)
- [Multi-User Chat Assistant (MUCA): a Framework Using LLMs to Facilitate Group Conversations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.04883/) (2024)
- [The Effect of Moderation on Online Mental Health Conversations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.09225/) (2020)
- [Interaction Matters: An Evaluation Framework for Interactive Dialogue Assessment on English Second Language Conversations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.06479/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [Evaluation and Facilitation of Online Discussions in the LLM Era: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.01513/) (2025)
- [To Facilitate or not to Facilitate: Human and LLM Facilitator Tendencies in Online Discussions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.28643/) (2026)
- [CIG: Measuring Conversational Information Gain in Deliberative Dialogues with Semantic Memory Dynamics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.15647/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We propose WHoW, an evaluation framework for analyzing the facilitation strategies of moderators across different domains/scenarios by examining their motives (Why), dialogue acts (How) and target speaker (Who). Using this framework, we annotated 5,657 moderation sentences with human judges and 15,494 sentences with GPT-4o from two domains: TV debates and radio panel discussions. Comparative analysis demonstrates the framework's cross-domain generalisability and reveals distinct moderation strategies: debate moderators emphasise coordination and facilitate interaction through questions and instructions, while panel discussion moderators prioritize information provision and actively participate in discussions. Our analytical framework works for different moderation scenarios, enhances our understanding of moderation behaviour through automatic large-scale analysis, and facilitates the development of moderator agents.