If you are running an on-line forum and wonder why people in your community are not participating as much as you would expect then see this article
Participation Inequality: Encouraging More Users to Contribute from Jakob Nielsen.
- 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
So if you have less than 100 people in your community - the forum may simply not be viable.
A big thanks to
Ed Mitchell for making me aware of this document.
