this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2026
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In Internet culture, the 1% rule is a general rule of thumb pertaining to participation in an Internet community, stating that only 1% of the users of a website actively create new content, while the other 99% of the participants only lurk. Variants include the 1–9–90 rule (sometimes 90–9–1 principle or the 89:10:1 ratio),[1] which states that in a collaborative website such as a wiki, 90% of the participants of a community only consume content, 9% of the participants change or update content, and 1% of the participants add content.

Similar rules are known in information science; for instance, the 80/20 rule known as the Pareto principle states that 20 percent of a group will produce 80 percent of the activity, regardless of how the activity is defined.

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[–] CombatWombat@feddit.online 29 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Fun fact: if you start posting regularly, 9 commenters and 90 lurkers will join to balance it out.

[–] JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social 7 points 1 week ago

If only.

Then again, I'd say there's huge variance there based on how niche or how popular a community is.

[–] schmorpel@slrpnk.net 22 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I want to be the 1 percent but brain cell finds it all too hard even just writing a comment that rhymes is really difficult

[–] Exusia@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

Its easy enough to repost legacy memes. Antiques memes roadshow is like, a place to post reposts since, if it was new content, you'd be posting it in meirl or an appropriate community.

[–] uhmbah@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I am definitely a lurker, despite this comment.

[–] Duitara@feddit.org 2 points 1 week ago

Proud to be part of the 9% 💪

[–] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Does posting links count as content creation?

[–] aloofPenguin@piefed.world 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Sort of? I mean, you are creating discussion (potentially)..... something that was not there before...., so, content.

[–] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yay, I'm a content creator!

[–] Plum@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago
[–] SirSamuel@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago
[–] Maroon@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (2 children)

You have to be an absolute chad like @The_Picard_Maneuver@lemmy.world or a complete nutter like bubblybubbles

[–] Exusia@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

With K not far behind!

[–] PineRune@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Now add in bots reposting spam-blog slop and see how it shifts. It seems like 80% of the posts I'm seeing on Lemmy are bots just spamming articles to pay-walled news articles or someone's news blog, all without any text or description other than a click-bait title, to drive traffic to the site.

[–] rimu@piefed.social 5 points 1 week ago

On instances where the admins proactively seek out and tag bots and AI slop (like mine), the threadiverse looks quite different.

Shop around.

[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

Weird. I'd put that at 10% or less of what I see. But I've blocked several communities and users.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 3 points 1 week ago

seems more likely on reddit than lemmy. i dont see that many bots on lemmy, and they are usually the most trolly or downvoted comments.

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Bots are generally spotted pretty quick and banned, though some do slip through. It is certainly not 80% on Lemmy (my perception is more like 7 to 10%).

Many people post links to news since it is relatively low effort, and something that can be done consistently to keep a community active and encourage discussion. That's not to say more original content wouldn't be appreciated and is needed, but as we are still small, there likely isn't a big enough pool of people who can create higher effort original stuff to keep up a constant 'supply', for lack of a better term.

[–] PineRune@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

A majority of what I'm seeing might not be bots but is definitely "low effort" as you said. I'll browse through the Hot posts across all instances Federated with my instance and it seems like most of what I see is just low-effort, copy-paste links with no description in the body of the post and a click-bait title leading to a pay-walled news article.

[–] phonics@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Isn't it next to impossible to make content on Wikipedia? Like I can't just create an account and go ham right? Is it that easy?

[–] lokalhorst@feddit.org 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It is pretty easy. If you are a new account then of course someone needs to review your changes. I sometimes fix some typos or faulty sentences, but never added original content. But I guess you start small and the more small changes you make, the more trust you get.

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 week ago

On the German Wikipedia at least there are too many Blockwarte that delete new pages as not relevant almost immediatly, so I gave up trying to contribute there.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 points 1 week ago

the most trafficked pages probably(politics, stem,,,,etc)? maybe an original entry by you might be different.

Does shitcommenting count as creating content? If so I’m in the one percent

[–] Sv443@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago

Easy to say when your barrier of entry is so high