A community I am part of in the online marketing world - Affiliates4u made a great post today which says that of their 20,000 strong online community, only 200 people are active posters - thats only 1% of the community

Shock horror. This lead to four plus pages of discussion threads on whether the non regular contributing members(thereby including me) should be a) banned or b) charged a premium

http://www.affiliates4u.com/forums/affiliate-marketing-moderators-choice/71113-approx-20-000-members-only-approx-200-regular-posters.html

This comes as no surprise to us and accords with other research that shows similar figures:

- Our own research based on communities we own, run and manage - around 1% of people actually contribute;

- Mckinsey and Gartner have carried out similar research and found similar numbers.

We have gone further and classified 5 different groups of people within a community - they are:

1.       Stars - People who actively "do the work" within any online environment.  They are advocates, contributors and generally the people who lead and start dialogue.  These people typically form about 1% to 3% of any group.

2.       Doers - People whose natural behaviour is not to start, but to respond.  They will contribute to most areas and will on occasion be the catalyst for activity.  Typically, these make up 16% to 20%.

3.       Groupies - Always the largest group.  Generally anonymous and showing up as traffic across a web entity, Groupies (or lurkers) spend their time digesting and taking rather than contributing.  Rarely do they contribute and they are unlikely to start any discussions. However, this is the majority of any community and therefore they delineate value.  Typically, these people are up to 60%.

4.       Cloggers - People who find their way into a community environment, but are not aligned to the offering.  Their interest is low and generally they have little inherent value.  Typically, these are between 10% to 12%.

5.       Wreckers - in any environment, even highly regulated ones, there will be dissenting voices.  Community owners need to have coping strategies for these people. These are typically around 5% to 10% of a community.  Interestingly Wreckers, if handled appropriately have the potential to become stars.

So to return to the question - should the non active people be banned? Well, that depends on what you want to achieve? Our view is that the profile observed in the affiliate community is a perfectly natural position and that if you want to run/ own/ manage a community that's what you are going to get. If you want to hive off a separate close for closed discussions and get them to pay for it, then go for it, but we think that probably detracts from the overall energy, position and most importantly the value of an online community.

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