Participation inequality

An expression coined by Will Hill of AT&T Laboratories and later cited by Jakob Nielsen [http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9708b.html "Community is Dead; Long Live Mega-Collaboration", Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox for August 15, 1997] The earliest known reference to the term "participation equality".] . The concept was described as follows:

A major reason why user-contributed content rarely turns into a true community is that all aspects of Internet use are characterized by severe participation inequality (a term I have from Will Hill of AT&T Laboratories). A few users contribute the overwhelming majority of the content, while most users either post very rarely or not at all. Unfortunately, those people who have nothing better to do than post on the Internet all day long are rarely the ones who have the most insights. In other words, it is inherent in the nature of the Internet that any unedited stream of user-contributed content will be dominated by uninteresting material.

The key problem is the unedited nature of most user-contributed content. Any useful postings drown in the mass of "me too" and flame wars. The obvious solution is to introduce editing, filtering, or other ways of prioritizing user-contributed content. One idea is to pick a few of the best reader comments and make them prominent by posting them directly on the primary page, while other reader comments languish on a secondary page. It is also possible to promote the most interesting postings based on a vote by other readers who could click "good stuff" or "bozo" buttons.

This concept is often euphemized as the "1% Rule", which does not explicitly refer to the quality of participation, just the quantity. The term participation inequality regained public attention in 2006 when it was used in a strictly quantitative context within a blog entry on the topic of marketing. [http://customerevangelists.typepad.com/blog/2006/05/charting_wiki_p.html "The 1% Rule: Charting citizen participation", Ben McConnell] ]

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