On facilitating an online discussion:

Often, a long discussion will leave the participants feeling a bit lost. The conversation might have taken so many twists and turns that people are unsure of where they have gotten to, or even what the original question was.

It is enormously helpful to have a facilitator occasionally post a summary of what has been said so far. A summary might identify areas where consensus has been reached, and the questions that are still unresolved. It might point out the major themes that have arisen, providing a framework for further discussion. It can summarize arguments that have been made, so as to prevent the discussion from retracing the same ground over and over. And the summary can provide links to the full original text of any messages that it references.

A good summary is helpful to the participants, and is valuable to anyone coming late to the discussion. Writing a good summary requires human intelligence; it involves not just comprehending the meaning of individual messages, but recognizing and describing complex patterns and relationships between them.