An interesting Guardian article on who participates in a community and, at least peripherally, how that contributes to the critical mass of a working community:
It's an emerging rule of thumb that suggests that if you get a group of 100 people online then one will create content, 10 will "interact" with it (commenting or offering improvements) and the other 89 will just view it.
...
Bradley Horowitz of Yahoo points out that much the same applies at Yahoo: in Yahoo Groups, the discussion lists, "1% of the user population might start a group; 10% of the user population might participate actively, and actually author content, whether starting a thread or responding to a thread-in-progress; 100% of the user population benefits from the activities of the above groups," he noted on his blog (www.elatable.com/blog/?p=5) in February
...via elearningpost
Posted by dcoates at August 03, 2006 11:23 AMThat came up at one of the WebVisions sessions I was at week before last, with the additional point that everybody starts as a "passive user" of any online community service.
my notes, for what they're worth. :)
Posted by: Elaine Nelson on August 3, 2006 01:32 PMThanks for sharing your notes, Elaine!
Among the many things I find fascinating about the lurker community (and I lurk myself in a number of places) is that as a lurker, you get to know people (the active posters) who don't get to know you in the same way. Everyone gets a sense of community but the 'face' of the community is not a complete picture (which is probably true off-line as well when you think about it).
Posted by: Deb on August 3, 2006 01:39 PMYou're welcome! I've been both a lurker and a major participant in various online things, and I know exactly what you mean.
Posted by: Elaine on August 3, 2006 06:20 PM