So, yeah, I can get a little sick of it. Until I read a story like this one in Salon about how web 2 isn’t really democratic at all, but just a small number of people behind the scenes. Then I remember how much work there is to do. Understanding is not widespread. Salon is web-only magazine. Web-only!

They should have at least some clue. But they have no clue. And it’s not like the Cluetrain isn’t going through there on a regular basis.

Let’s take a look as some facts that Salon should have uncovered. First of all, we’ve known for a long time about the number of people who “lurk” vs. the number of people who “post” vs. the number of people who post incessantly. (That’s us.) Per 1,000 users:

• 959 will only read (lurkers)
• 59 will mostly read and post occasionally (kibbitzers)
• 15 will post
• 5 will post like crazy
• 2 will be complete jerks

It’s no surprise at all that 80% of Wikipedia edits are done by 20% of the users. It’s actually way above average.

But Salon also assumes that the number of educated edits is the same as the number of times a page is edited. In reality, the page is edited every time it’s read. By reading and NOT editing a page, expert users passively approved the content. “Looks good to me,” is the tacit approval.

Salon found a piece of information, thought they understood what it meant and wrote a silly, pointless article. The lesson is: don’t take what you read at face value. Everybody who can is talking or writing about web 2. Are they expert enough edit the web 2 page on Wikipedia?

*These two sentences, written exclusively in the passive voice and using no fewer than four unidentified pronouns, are dedicated to Robert J. Leaver.