Even if only 1% of the community participates...

McConnell and Huba had a post that generated a lot of discussion on other blogs. In this post, called: The 1% rule: Charting Citizen Participation, they note that several participative websites all have something in common:

If we also add evidence from Bradley Horowitz that roughly 1% of Yahoo's user population starts a Yahoo Group, we seem to have The 1% Rule: Roughly 1% of your site visitors will create content within a democratized community. (Horowitz also says that some 10% of the total audience "synthesizes" the content, or interacts with it.)

These are some very interesting facts and figures. In a new post, called: "Are you a 1 percenter?" on this "1% rule"-topic, they warn their readers that this percentage must not be marginalised.

Avoid marginalizing the 1 Percenters as statistically insignificant, unrepresentative of the total audience or simply the lunatic fringe. If anything, the 1 Percenters may represent the leading indicators of how well your brand is being adopted, synthesized and vocalized.

In response to the first post, The Provokat blog succeded in making this 1% rule somehow more tangible:

"If 1% of Quebec television viewers were producers/directors that would equal 70,000. If 1% of audience members at Madonna’s last show were on stage with her, that would equal 600 back-up singers."