Re: Participation Inequality (Was: Participation in the NGC4LIB list)

So how long would you say one should wait before 
reacting to a post, in order to give everyone else 
on the list the impression that one *does* have a 
life ? :-)


- Laval Hunsucker
   Breukelen, Nederland




----- Original Message ----
From: B.G. Sloan <bgsloan2_at_YAHOO.COM>
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Sent: Fri, August 20, 2010 3:30:45 PM
Subject: [NGC4LIB] Participation Inequality (Was: Participation in the NGC4LIB 
list)

In June we were discussing how the vast majority of NGC4LIB posts come from a 
small number of list members. I mentioned that this was a fairly common 
phenomenon in my experience. 


Now I find out that it has a name: "participation inequality". Jakob Nielsen 
discusses it in this posting from 2006:

Participation Inequality: Encouraging More Users to Contribute (see: 
http://bit.ly/cI9T11).

Among other things, Nielsen cites a 90-9-1 rule for participation in large 
online groups: 


* 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.

I'm not trying to re-open the discussion. Just thought this might be of interest 
to some...

Bernie Sloan