A thought-provoking piece by Charles Arthur in the Guardian discusses what he calls “the 1% rule”. Anyone who has run the gamut of internet sites, from forums to blogs, will recognize this little piece of wisdom:

“It’s an emerging rule of thumb that suggests that if you get a group of 100 people online then one will create content, 10 will ‘interact’ with it (commenting or offering improvements) and the other 89 will just view it.”

How does he come by this information? “… each day there are 100 million downloads and 65,000 uploads — which is 1,538 downloads per upload — and 20m unique users per month”. So the creator to consumer ratio is 0.5%,

In Wikipedia, 50% of all article-edits are done by 0.7% of users, and more than 70% of all articles have been written by just 1.8% of all users.

“Earlier metrics garnered from community sites suggested that about 80% of content was produced by 20% of the users [there's that 80/20 principle again].”

It’s clear from this that a site that demands too much interaction and content generation from users will see nine out of 10 people pass it by.

In Yahoo Groups: “1% of the user population might start a group; 10% of the user population might participate actively, and actually author content.”

The trouble, says Arthur, as in real life, is “finding the builders”.

The exception to this trend, I would say, are tech development sites, like IE blog, where vast numbers of comments easily outgun the posts. But, apart from that, the trend is clearly true.

Blogging, like any other form of publishing, is about finding writers with the talent, motivation and stamina to produce good content over time. They are not easy to come by.

Any form of media is about publishing, and publishing hasn’t changed since the earliest days of printing. Only a very few have what it takes to make a decent book/blog/video etc. Good publishers (i.e. successful media operators) will recognize that it’s a minority activity.

It always has been, and it always will be.

It had to come, a beauty blog on Syntagma. Not that we’re averse to a bit of slap on the old mush, you understand — so long as it’s other people’s. But we’ve always been more like White’s than the Windmill.

However, Adelle persisted from her high vantage point at Creme de la Femme and the battle was lost. The Chanel and Estee Lauder crowd have charged through the portcullis here at Syntagma Towers and occupied a small corner of the Great Hall. We’re keeping them at bay with Irish wolfhounds, so we shouldn’t get too much trouble from them.

Our excellent blogger is Andrea Paulsen — a fellow Viking, so we should be okay — ably assisted, I’m told, by Clive Allen. Although quite what he knows about moisturiser and lipstick is beyond me.

I’m only teasing them, of course. We are delighted to extend the scope of Syntagma’s ever-expanding, online, distributed magazine to cover the topics our readers want.

Take a look at Beauty on a Budget.

Even more silly season stuff. Even sillier than before.

If you have a blog and have more than a passing interest in traffic, you’ll know that meaty post titles are essential. Keywords that real people search for are the key to getting on the end of those inexplicable tidal flows of traffic that literally surge exponentially across the blogosphere.

Enough waffle, what would be your dream post title, then? Robert Scoble Marries Dave Winer? No, it will never happen — Dave’s far to old for Robert.

How about combining two great tide-provoking stars in one post. Yes, but you need a connection, right? Right. Without a story it’s pure spam and beneath contempt.

Let’s pull something out of Syntagma’s voluminous hat for a moment. Britney Spears. OK, that’s a good start. Princess Diana. Wow, both in the same title? But what’s the connection?

Slip on over to Royal Anecdotes for: Britney Spears Obsessed with Princess Diana … and find out.

We are hearing that some ISPs in India are blocking Google’s popular Blogspot domain. It’s being heralded widely as India morphing into China. But is it?

A correspondent in India whose blog http://arunachalagrace.blogspot.com has had problems, sent me this:

The current story is that as a result of the recent problems in Bombay, the Government instructed 11 sites to be taken down — one of which was linked to Blogspot — so they took down the whole of Blogspot instead of that one site linked to it. The Government then started on some more destructive creativity — but have run up against huge howls of protest. You cannot imagine the uproar here as a result of the censorship.

It’s a new time and the Government has responded in the China way — ban everything! But nowadays there’s a middle class and a large number of educated people — the old shock and awe methods don’t work anymore. But it takes time for that to sink in.

No doubt the matter will be speedily resolved especially as India is the largest call centre and outsourcing hub in the World - and 90% of those lucrative contracts are from the Western World. If India wishes to maintain a professional credibility they will have to choose. It is difficult for a naturally authoritative political structure to relax their grip but no doubt the commerical aspect will tilt the balance.

In the meantime I’ve already found ways of accessing Blogspot — its a new time — you have to be able to get into automatic zig-zag mode!

So there you have it. It’s not easy to block the ingenuity of bloggers, except by shutting off their internet connections completely.

More silly season stuff. This weekend I discovered I’m a Viking.

Mock you not, this is serious. Yes, I’m one of those horn-headed, axe-wielding types who terrorized Europe for centuries. Before you run for cover, I’m not about to go on a “spreadeagling” spree or demand you pay me Danegeld — although that might not be a bad idea.

I realized I’ve got Viking blood — as many in the British Isles have — because of a minor medical condition which affects the small finger tendon in the palm of a hand. This progressive condition pulls the small finger gradually across the palm, giving a rather gnarled, even romantic impression to the onlooker. The figure of Captain Hook springs to mind.

Apparently, the hooked little finger is genetic and only occurs in people with remnants of Scandinavian genes. It’s called a “syndrome”, I believe, but then everything is these days.

Margaret Thatcher had this condition. She had a small surgical procedure to correct it when she was Prime Minister. Coming from Lincolnshire, once the heart of the Danelaw (where you paid a tribute in gold to the Viking rulers), she was obviously of the bloodline. She even behaved like a Viking. That was a great part of her charm.

So now I have to reassess my goals in life. Never having been one to go on the rampage for any reason, it means changing the habits of a lifetime. Running amok with a six-foot axe seems to be my destiny. Pillage and rapine are in my blood. Scorched earth my policy inheritance. Where shall I begin?

Maybe I’ll get the little finger fixed first.

Our sister website Royal Anecdotes has reacted to the publication in two European newspapers of a photograph of Princess Diana dying with the above image. Read the piece here.

That some people have done this is a disgrace to journalism — a sickening, exploitative use of the media that should be condemned by everyone.

One last piece about aspects of Superdemocracy. [Note: Remember to keep this promise.]

Why is it that politicians now try to protect us from what used to be called Acts of God?

Do they? Of course they do. Why else would they cut down chestnut trees in case conkers fall on our heads? Why do officals have to file Risk Assessments for even the most trivial activity? Why are children’s playgrounds carpeted in rubber with a nurse on standby in case one of them grazes a knee?

In that great book, Zen in the Art of Archery, Herrigel asks a Zen master what Zen actually is. The master motions him to sit down on some sand overlooking a garden. They sit in silent meditation for three hours. Later the master points at the spot where he sat — it’s a perfectly formed depression with well-defined edges. Then he indicates where Herrigel sat — a much larger area with sand flung out untidily.

It was not your body that moved, said the master, but your mind. Your restless Western mind thinks that if you aren’t busy at something, the world will stop turning and chaos will take over.

But look, the grass kept growing, birds flew about in the sky, people went about their business. Nobody missed your presence, least of all the world.

When Presidents and Prime Ministers are sworn in, they should be made to read that passage. If they ceased restlessly interfering in our lives — and it’s much worse in Europe than in North America — Superdemocracy would be naturally present in society and most things would be done at the Point of Maximum Competence, or nearer to it than now.

Right now, the politicos and their armies of role-stealers are sending us to hell in a handcart.

Syntagma’s mini-series on Superdemocracy ( Pt1, Pt2, Pt3 ) has elicited a few emails, one of which was the offer of a book deal from a decent publisher.

Good? Like all of life’s little packages, yes and no.

Yes, because I would like to expand on the topic a lot more and a book project is always a pleasure to conceive — if not always to execute.

No, because Syntagma Media is running away with my time like the mettlesome horse it is. Sometime I feel like that chariot driver in the Tarot pack. I’ve already had to merge two book projects ( The Nirvaneans and Cosmosity ) into one because of time constraints, and while that definitely benefits both books by cutting duplication, it does limit the conceptual canvas they began with.

I’ve also had offers for Syntagma Media which fall short of a vague minimum I set myself at the outset. However, the offers and the price are coming closer.

I’m writing all this down because it illustrates some of the principles of Superdemocracy itself. In your own life you need to concentrate on the things you do best or your precious energy will spurt out in all directions and attenuate into a bunch of small achievements signifying nothing.

The 80/20 Principle is Superdemocracy as applied to the individual. You see how this stuff is already out there and working.

Incidentally, someone has snapped up superdemocracy.com, apparently very recently. I’ll be watching to see if they take any of my material. I have got the .org though.

The final part of our mini-series on Superdemocracy carries the argument forward from business and governmental decision-making and political organization to the essentially social concerns of happiness and public wellbeing.

Recapping: Superdemocracy is ensuring that critical decisions are taken at the Point of Maximum Competence, a deceptively simple idea, difficult in practice, but with extraordinary benefits to the organization or state that uses it.

A new survey by the UK-based New Economics Foundation (NEF) has tried to measure the environmental efficiency of global progress with its “Happy Planet Index” report, which it believes paints a different order of world wellbeing.

The NEF said: “The Happy Planet Index strips the view of the economy back to its absolute basics: what we put in (resources), and what comes out (human lives of different length and happiness).”

Given that there are fewer than 200 nations on the planet, you may be surprised that the USA came in at #150. Mind you, it beat Russia into 172nd place. Even the UK at #108 can’t take any plaudits.

Out of Asian nations, Vietnam came highest at #12, which may seem counter-intuitive given its violent past. But then Buddhist countries have always scored well in this type of survey. Meanwhile, Singapore, a notoriously controlled state, was ranked lowest in Asia at #131.

African countries made up seven of the bottom 10, with crushed Zimbabwe — Mugabe’s vision of hell made manifest — not surprisingly coming last on the list.

The extraordinary feature of the report is that, while not setting out to examine Superdemocracy principles — I doubt the authors had been reading Syntagma — it clearly shows that where these principles are naturally present in a society, people are a lot happier.

The West does poorly overall largely because critical decisions are taken at inappropriate levels and people are left feeling cut off from large parts of their own lives. With the state controlling most things, “leisure” has been substituted for the satisfaction of taking care of yourself, your family and even your local governance.

A simple phasing in of Superdemocracy would make a huge difference to wealth, health and happiness as I hope I’ve demonstrated over these three posts.

Now reread Part 1. Note: You are not being brainwashed.