Tech Forum

Hi,
I build a site (eqideaexchange.com) as a collaborative tool for EQ presidents to share ideas, documents, templates, etc. The idea is to create a knowledge base so that each successive EQ president isn't reinventing the wheel trying to get organized or develop programs.

So far I haven't had much success driving contributions to the site. I've even contacted EQ presidents directly via email and gotten a luke warm response. It seems like the newbies are very interested in a site like this. But the veterans (i.e. those who actually have stuff to contribute) seem to already have things figured out and don't seem to have much use for this site.

Is the idea behind this site fundamentally flawed? If not, under what conditions can a site like this suceed? I'm interested to get people's take on this.

I still think this is a great idea and would have loved to have had something like this to refer to when I was first called as an EQ president. But it will never be a very compelling destination unless I can build up the content base. And so far, that's proven very challenging.

How the heck do they get all those people to contribute to wikipedia???!!!

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

- Doug

Doug, I don't think the idea is flawed, it just may take a while for people to find it and to contribute. Perhaps people don't think they have anything good to contribute, or perhaps they just don't have time.

Just be patient would be my suggestion, and I'm sure eventually it will turn into the resource you created it to be.

Doug-
Don't get discouraged, but it is important to remember what is sometimes referred to as the "1% rule". From an article on participation inequality by Jakob Nielsen:

Inequalities are also found on Wikipedia, where more than 99% of users are lurkers. According to Wikipedia's "about" page, it has only 68,000 active contributors, which is 0.2% of the 32 million unique visitors it has in the U.S. alone.

Wikipedia's most active 1,000 people -- 0.003% of its users -- contribute about two-thirds of the site's edits. Wikipedia is thus even more skewed than blogs, with a 99.8-0.2-0.003 rule.

Anyone have an idea of the participation equality of this site?

Wikipedia's most active 1,000 people -- 0.003% of its users -- contribute about two-thirds of the site's edits.

I wonder what the numbers are once edits only for punctuation, grammar and style are excluded?

Sometime it is easier to figure out how to get things working than is is to explain to someone else how to get things working. That's why there are those that do, and those that teach others how to do.