Lilaena De'Ville
Oct 17th, 2006, 12:20:29 AM
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/participation_inequality.html
Summary:
In most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action.
User participation often more or less follows a 90-9-1 rule:
90% of users are lurkers (i.e., read or observe, but don't contribute).
9% of users contribute from time to time, but other priorities dominate their time.
1% of users participate a lot and account for most contributions: it can seem as if they don't have lives because they often post just minutes after whatever event they're commenting on occurs.
If we apply this directly to Sw-fans: out of 795 members, 715 are lurkers who never contribute (:shakefist), 71 contribute a little, and almost 8 of us account for most of the action.
Actually, I have to almost agree with that. ^_^; I would skew us a little higher in regards to the number of people who account for most of the action, but its pretty close. We have a lot of turnover between the 9% and 1% groups, people switching places from week to week.
Summary:
In most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action.
User participation often more or less follows a 90-9-1 rule:
90% of users are lurkers (i.e., read or observe, but don't contribute).
9% of users contribute from time to time, but other priorities dominate their time.
1% of users participate a lot and account for most contributions: it can seem as if they don't have lives because they often post just minutes after whatever event they're commenting on occurs.
If we apply this directly to Sw-fans: out of 795 members, 715 are lurkers who never contribute (:shakefist), 71 contribute a little, and almost 8 of us account for most of the action.
Actually, I have to almost agree with that. ^_^; I would skew us a little higher in regards to the number of people who account for most of the action, but its pretty close. We have a lot of turnover between the 9% and 1% groups, people switching places from week to week.