I think that the most important aspects of moderating are to ensure adequate input from all individuals involved so that one or two people are not dominating the conversation. To coax more from those more shy or quieter individuals, I think that it is important to ask if anybody else has something interesting to say so that people who might not have said as much feel like it is okay for them to have input.
I think that it is also immensely important that a moderator not show favoritism towards one side of an argument, but rather will play people “against” each other or play devil’s advocate to ensure further discussion. The moderator should simply not have to add to the discussion much at all, rather he or she should point the discussion in a specific direction that seems like it will encourage good discussion or will result in a conclusion. However, if the group is reaching a conclusion, by playing devil’s advocate, the moderator can challenge that conclusion to ensure that it has been solidly formed through rigorous discussion.
Throughout the course of my experience moderating my group, I realized that my moderating style primarily exhibited itself as one of encouraging discussion by playing devil’s advocate with the idea in mind of reaching that conclusion, yet ensuring that it was a sound one. I think that I am a good harmonizer who can help individuals to reach a conclusion, but I think that my logical thinking style also allows me to see others views at full value so that I can bring people together. The hardest portion of the moderation for me personally was having to encourage discussion when people became disinterested. Well it is certainly possible to keep conversation going for a tiny bit of time, it is almost impossible to keep it going indefinitely. I found that the easiest thing to do was to always keep a new conversation topic in mind so that when the conversation did stall, I could push it in a new direction.
You might consider why it was so difficult to keep the conversation going and perhaps what other directions could have led to more deliberation. It’s OK to recognize yours and others’ limitations in moderating either b/c you’re all friends, or b/c you are not an experienced moderator, etc. I recommend you bring your discussion down to what actually happened during our deliberation. e. g. : “Most moderators did a great job of recognizing people who wanted to share but quieter participants were not encouraged to speak b/c moderators did not want to put them on the spot.”