Very thought provoking and well put. I’d go along with all these myth debunkings but I do have questions on the participation rates. I agree what you can see patterns emerge with very high saturated use where the social tool meets a specific need is a spectacularly good way. & yep, I too saw this in the early days (with a TeleFinder based project BBS & then web based). However, the overall trend does seem to be one of a few doers, a few more commenters and a lot of lurkers. Much like Charlene Li’s Participation Ladder: http://forrester.typepad.com/groundswell/2007/04/forresters_new_.html this is a lot more nuanced than the 90:9:1 model but the overall pattern is the same. But is it wrong?