I know about Sturgeon's Law,but what about this one?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/90%E2%80%939%E2%80%931_principle

Contributor! I am the 13%!

Yes, I am part of the 1% who have better things to do with their time but instead waste it on forums.

Per-cent is for beggars and clowns. I use per-dollar.

I am the 1 perdollar.

Still looking for it. Haven't found any but I know it's here somewhere...

1 pereuro

traitor

Then it should be permark and pertolar, respectively.

Or have you forgotten?

im the one thats say derp.DERP

No, it's still perdollar. GOG.com: one world, fair price.

Boy, you best be gettin' that there funny yewropean money outta mah neighborhood, if you know what's good fer ya.

*spits and waves his American flag with the "Made in China" tag*

I buy that, I've never made an account on many of the forums I visit because I have nothing much to say in the context of the purpose of those forums that has not already been said. For example I'm "slow" about getting to games, so xbox360achievements.org is great for me to read, but I have nothing novel or useful to post (beyond achievement trading which I generally don't engage in due to utter lack of time).

Also, there's dozens of useful forums where I've found a lot of answers to my problems, but I don't stick around much. Oddly if you search some combinations of terms with game names you'll end up on these forums. I'm sure many folks have done a drive by of our forums, found their answers, and rarely if ever have returned.

I think it's because, unless you're looking for,say, a specific answer to a specific question, a lot of forums end up being quite useless. How many "What are you listening to?" or "I hate my life" threads is it really necessary to participate in? Unless it's a small, dedicated community, looking through forums is generally like trying to find something worth watching on tv. Most of it is crap.

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I think it depends on the forums.

The more laid back and generic the forum is, the greater the ratio of contributors I would theorize.

That is because the interaction is the purpose of the forum more than information.

But in a very specialized forum like stackoverflow, information is king and not only are you discouraged from posting if you don't have anything meaningful to add, but you are also strongly encouraged to peruse existing threads and look for your answer BEFORE you ask a question to avoid redundancy.

In such an environment, the ratio of contributors is unavoidably tiny, because maybe 1000 people will have the same question in a year, but only 1 person will ask it the first time and maybe an handful of people will answer it.

Actually, this makes me think: This forum might be more usable to a lot of people if it was divided along usability lines.

The Utopia forum is a good example of this:

http://forums.utopia-game.com/forumdisplay.php?1527-Utopia

I guess the game specific forums are a start, but there should probably be a section dedicated to announcements and one dedicated to inquiries about the service GOG provides (as opposed to specific games).