In Internet culture, the 1% rule is a rule of thumb per-
taining to participation in an internet community, stating
that only 1% of the users of a website actively create new
content, while the other 99% of the participants only lurk.
Variants include the 1-9-90 rule (sometimes 90–9–1 prin-
ciple or the 89:10:1 ratio),[1] which states that in a collab-
orative website such as a wiki, 90% of the participants of
a community only view content, 9% of the participants
edit content, and 1% of the participants actively create
new content.
Similar rules are known in information science, such as the 80/20 rule known as the Pareto principle, that 20 per- cent of a group will produce 80 percent of the activity, however the activity may be defined.
Similar rules are known in information science, such as the 80/20 rule known as the Pareto principle, that 20 per- cent of a group will produce 80 percent of the activity, however the activity may be defined.
1 Definition
The 1% rule states that the number of people who cre- ate content on the Internet represents approximately 1% (give or take) of the people actually viewing that content. For example, for every person who posts on a forum, gen- erally about 99 other people are viewing that forum but not posting. The term was coined by authors and blog- gers Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba,[2] although earlier references to the same concept[3] did not use this name.The terms lurk and lurking, in reference to online activ- ity, are used to refer to online observation without engag- ing others in the community, and were first used by vet- eran print journalist, P Tomi Austin, circa 1990, when her presence was noticed by other users in chat rooms, who queried her reasons for not engaging in chat. There were repeated inquiries about her identity and her refusal to en- gage in chat. The etiquette was, apparently, to greet other users upon entry into the chat rooms/sites. At the time, (then in her 30s, surfing among users averaging in their teens and 20s) she was only identified as “Bilbo”, she ex- plained that she was a mature, but computer-literate, user and novice to chat, and preferred to lurk, or was lurking to familiarize herself with the chat culture, etiquette, and the sites to which she had logged on. In some instances, she needed to explain her coinage of the term “lurking”, as the term was new to the online community, but others quickly understood her meaning. To her knowledge, the terms had not been used prior to that period, and there appears to be no earlier dated reference to the coinage. There appears to be no attribution to the coinage that pre- dates the early 1990s.
The actual percentage is likely to vary depending upon
the subject matter. For example, if a forum requires con-
tent submissions as a condition of entry, the percentage
of people who participate will probably be significantly
higher than one percent, but the content producers will still be a minority of users. This is validated in a study
conducted by Michael Wu, who uses economics tech-
niques to analyze the participation inequality across hun-
dreds of communities segmented by industry, audience
type, and community focus.[6]
The 1% rule is often misunderstood to apply to the Inter- net in general, but it applies more specifically to any given Internet community. It is for this reason that one can see evidence for the 1% principle on many websites, but aggregated together one can see a different distribution. This latter distribution is still unknown and likely to shift, but various researchers and pundits have speculated on how to characterize the sum total of participation. Holly Goodier, in conjunction with the BBC presented research in late 2012 suggesting that only 23 percent of the popula- tion (rather than 90 percent) could properly be classified as lurkers, while 17% of the population could be clas- sified as intense contributors of content.[7] Several years prior, communication scholars Eszter Hargittai and Gina Walejko reported on a sample of students from Chicago where 60 percent of the sample created content in some form.[8]
The 1% rule states that the number of people who cre- ate content on the Internet represents approximately 1% (give or take) of the people actually viewing that content. For example, for every person who posts on a forum, gen- erally about 99 other people are viewing that forum but not posting. The term was coined by authors and blog- gers Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba,[2] although earlier references to the same concept[3] did not use this name.The terms lurk and lurking, in reference to online activ- ity, are used to refer to online observation without engag- ing others in the community, and were first used by vet- eran print journalist, P Tomi Austin, circa 1990, when her presence was noticed by other users in chat rooms, who queried her reasons for not engaging in chat. There were repeated inquiries about her identity and her refusal to en- gage in chat. The etiquette was, apparently, to greet other users upon entry into the chat rooms/sites. At the time, (then in her 30s, surfing among users averaging in their teens and 20s) she was only identified as “Bilbo”, she ex- plained that she was a mature, but computer-literate, user and novice to chat, and preferred to lurk, or was lurking to familiarize herself with the chat culture, etiquette, and the sites to which she had logged on. In some instances, she needed to explain her coinage of the term “lurking”, as the term was new to the online community, but others quickly understood her meaning. To her knowledge, the terms had not been used prior to that period, and there appears to be no earlier dated reference to the coinage. There appears to be no attribution to the coinage that pre- dates the early 1990s.
For example, a large 2005 study of radical Jihadist forums
by Akil N Awan found 87% of users had never posted on
the forums, 13% had posted at least once, 5% had posted
50 or more times, and only 1% had posted 500 or more
times.[4]
The “90–9–1” version of this rule states that for websites where users can both create and edit content, 1% of peo- ple create content, 9% edit or modify that content, and 90% view the content without contributing.
A 2014 study published in the Journal of Medical Inter- net Research by Trevor van Mierlo found that the 1% rule was consistent across four separate digital health social networks (support groups for problem drinking, depres- sion, panic disorder, and smoking cessation). During the study period 63,990 users created 578,349 posts, but less than 25% of users made one or more posts. The appli- cability of the 1% rule was confirmed as Lurkers (90% of users), Contributors (9% of users), and Superusers (the 1%) accounted for a weighted average of 1.3% (n = 4668), 24.0% (n = 88,732), and 74.7% (n = 276,034) of all content.[5]
The “90–9–1” version of this rule states that for websites where users can both create and edit content, 1% of peo- ple create content, 9% edit or modify that content, and 90% view the content without contributing.
A 2014 study published in the Journal of Medical Inter- net Research by Trevor van Mierlo found that the 1% rule was consistent across four separate digital health social networks (support groups for problem drinking, depres- sion, panic disorder, and smoking cessation). During the study period 63,990 users created 578,349 posts, but less than 25% of users made one or more posts. The appli- cability of the 1% rule was confirmed as Lurkers (90% of users), Contributors (9% of users), and Superusers (the 1%) accounted for a weighted average of 1.3% (n = 4668), 24.0% (n = 88,732), and 74.7% (n = 276,034) of all content.[5]
The 1% rule is often misunderstood to apply to the Inter- net in general, but it applies more specifically to any given Internet community. It is for this reason that one can see evidence for the 1% principle on many websites, but aggregated together one can see a different distribution. This latter distribution is still unknown and likely to shift, but various researchers and pundits have speculated on how to characterize the sum total of participation. Holly Goodier, in conjunction with the BBC presented research in late 2012 suggesting that only 23 percent of the popula- tion (rather than 90 percent) could properly be classified as lurkers, while 17% of the population could be clas- sified as intense contributors of content.[7] Several years prior, communication scholars Eszter Hargittai and Gina Walejko reported on a sample of students from Chicago where 60 percent of the sample created content in some form.[8]
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