Unequal Participation

Context:

Properties of social networks often follow a ‘power law where the probability of a particular attribute of k will decrease rapidly with an increase in k distribution’, as shown in the diagram on the left. 

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A large number of people make very few contributions; a few people – less than 1 % - make the overwhelming majority of contributions.

Results from surveys of a range of public online communities carried out since the early 1990’s indicate a ‘1% Rule’ as explained below:

• 90% of users read or browse but do not contribute
• 9% of users contribute occasionally  - usually by making minor edits, tidying up the site, or adding links to other web pages
• 1% of users participate very often and account for the overwhelming amount of contributions

Solutions to the problem of unequal participation in the CETLD wiki might include the following suggestions:

1. Differentiate the web site for different types of users - don’t expect everybody to contribute
The wiki will attract different types of visitor with very different needs.  The vast majority of visitors will only read or browse the website as a reference resource and will not require anything different from a conventional, published website.  For this type of user it is important that the web site provides a user-friendly and attractive interface - don’t make the site harder to read (or to print) or less appealing than a normal website just because it is a wiki.  A smaller number of visitors will ‘synthesise’ material, making minor changes to the wiki content if encouraged to do so, but they will not necessarily require wiki page-editing functionality to do this - threaded discussions and other Web 2.0 tools might work equally well.  Only a tiny percentage of visitors will make full use of the wiki’s ability to add original material.

2. Pay attention to the 1 per cent of visitors who create original material – consider offering a range of incentives where appropriate
These people are at the leading edge of the wiki – they will determine the overall quality and reputation of the project and it makes sense to treat them as a special case: consider inviting people directly to write material; think about paying a few writers to add content; increase the proportion of high quality work by making it prominent on the wiki, where it will attract more attention from readers and synthesisers.

3. Measure web usage and monitor the results over time
The 90-9-1 rule is an empirically proven statistic which can be used to benchmark the wiki against other tools and to track variations over time.  Most wikis create web logs for visitor usage as a matter of course – they can be readily added if they are not provided
   
4. Use the 90-9-1 ratio to make realistic forecasts for the wiki
Applying the 90-9-1 ratio to the RIBA membership, and assuming say 20% of members registered to join the wiki community, the predicted levels of participation according to the 90-9-1 rule would be 7,200 readers, 720 synthesisers, and 80 writers. 

5. The 90-9-1 ratio is a useful average and rule of thumb, but it needs to be interpreted within a given context
A change in the 90-9-1 ratio need only be marginal to have a significant effect - if only 1 per cent of readers become writers, then the number of writers would almost double.  The 1% rule applies to public wikis – levels of participation are higher for wikis behind firewalls.

Therefore:

The 1% Rule cannot be changed significantly because it reflects the structural property of public social networks, but it can be improved.

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The 1% Rule is sometimes used to reinforce allegations of bias and mediocrity - the voice of a tiny minority with a particular hobby horse or axe to grind can lead to the perceived ‘shrill opinion’ and lack of balanced representation – refer to the pattern The Cult of the Amateur.