Online community ninja, Jakob Nielsen, is one of the original brains behind the 90-9-1 rule. Stated simply, the rule goes...
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.Wikipedia is a classic example. 99% of Wikipedia users never contribute to the site. Of the 32 million Wikipedia unique visitors in the US, 68,000 are active contributors. In other words, only .02% of US Wikipedia users actually contribute to the site. Wikipedia isn't alone in experiencing such inequality. The rule applies to almost any online community.
The Student Affairs Collaborative has been our experiment in an open, peer-to-peer, learning community. The SA Blog, The SA Forum, and The #SACHAT are all open systems that allow, and welcome with open arms, lurkers. Lurkers are learning, and often times come back to contribute.
Nelsen says that we can't overcome participate inequality, we can only move the shape of the curve.
Allow more lurkers in. Make participation easier for lurkers. Reward contributions. Publicly promote your 1%.













