The size of the matter

What is the optimum size for a successful research-oriented online community? In the boardroom most would feel a little embarrassed proposing anything less than 500, and many would consider upwards of 10,000 perfectly reasonable. Yet on what assumptions are such numbers based, and more importantly, are they reliable?

Empirical evidence derived from neurology, anthropology, evolutionary biology and multiplayer online games would suggest not. Indeed, the findings of University College Professor Robin Dunbar and social software technologist Christopher Allen show that pitching any higher than 300 members will either result in failure or in something quite different from what was originally intended.

Dunbar proposes that the size of our social networks is determined by our brain capacity, which limits the number of people with whom we can maintain stable relationships. Using field studies of 36 primates, he discovered a correlation between the size of each species’ neocortex and the number in its social group. When he applied his formula to Homo Sapiens, it predicted 147.8 as a mean group size. ‘Dunbar’s Number’ has since found considerable support from census data on villages, tribes, academic communities, the armed forces and personal social networks across many cultures.

Shrinking expectations
Our experience of our own social networks – if we’re honest – is all it takes to corroborate Dunbar’s claims. So why does a membership of 147.8 suddenly seem pointless and lacking in ambition when it comes to planning an online community? For one, the vastness of the internet universe (and to a lesser extent, online panels) has a tendency to play tricks on the mind, rendering small numbers unthinkable and enormous numbers manageable. Furthermore, ‘community’ is an ill-defined term, used too freely. That it is applied to MySpace, Bebo, Facebook and other such entities is probably the root of the association between online community size and success. Yet these phenomena are not single goal-directed entities, but sprawling tangles of individual networks without clearly defined boundaries, identities or collective goals.

Scale may be seductive, but to be of genuine practical use to researchers and their clients an online community needs to be focused, purposeful and manageable. Dunbar shows us that this means we need to start thinking much smaller. In actual fact, he deemed 147.8 to be at the top end of the spectrum of social group size, a number associated with survival-oriented groups such as farming communities or military troops. Without physical closeness and frequent conversation (‘social grooming’) he argued, we should expect a mean that was lower still. Paradoxically, two of the principle attractions of online communities to researchers and participants are that they have no geographical limitations, and allow for irregular commitment, yet according to Dunbar these are not factors that favour the formation of large social groups. So how large a community can online conditions support, and are there examples from which researchers can take a lead?

Serious fun
The answers are to be found in an internet realm with much to teach online community builders: MMOGs or ‘massively multiplayer online games’. MMOGs are computer games with huge international memberships, capable of supporting thousands of users simultaneously. Perhaps the best known, World of Warcraft has over 9 million players worldwide. MMOGs involve immense fantasy worlds, where player-created characters are able to interact meaningfully with each other on a grand scale. Much of the gameplay operates at the level of a team or guild: tight-knit groups of players who get together on a regular basis to undertake quests and tasks. Such groups have many of the hallmarks of genuine communities: they are highly social, goal-oriented, and often have remarkably active, committed and stable memberships.

In his blog “Life With Alacrity”, entrepreneur and social software technologist, Christopher Allen, has compiled some statistics about group sizes in MMOGs, which he discusses in relation to Dunbar. As might be expected, several studies do reveal group sizes tailing off at 150, but more interesting is the finding that the vast majority are between 25-80 strong, with a mean of around 50 members. Allen believes these figures define the optimal size for an active “creative or technical group”, regardless of whether the context is online or offline. Anything higher than 80, he argues, requires so much socialisation to maintain group cohesion that members are left with insufficient time to devote to whatever reason they got together in the first place. Anything lower than 25 and there isn’t enough variety in the group to achieve critical mass.

Nevertheless, there is an exception to this rule that merits a mention – The Eternal City, an MMOG with a group size that regularly doubles up on Dunbar’s 147.8. Allen’s explanation is that the game is less social and more achievement-oriented than most, with interaction concentrated more on the environment than other players. This also suggests that there may be circumstances where researchers might justifiably violate Dunbar’s limit, for example, where their online community was heavily activity-based, or focused on a clear-set goal, but this is conjecture and requires further investigation.

All in all, however, there is little doubt that a research-oriented online community needs to be a great deal smaller than is generally assumed. The lessons provided by Dunbar and MMOGs are that to have a successful, stable group, we should aim at a membership of around 80, and never any higher than 300. These are limits set not by cowardice or lack of imagination, but by human physiology and behaviour. Many will ask if something so small is worth the effort. However, we should be careful that the glister of the grand schemes doesn’t blind us to the real benefits and unique opportunities of having a group of 80 well-screened, active, geographically-dispersed participants, immediately to hand, for an extended period. From a face-to-face qual perspective, this is a sizeable and diverse sample, which to engage repeatedly on an ongoing basis would be prohibitively expensive. Such communities may not be as mighty as we’d dreamed, but they work, they don’t require significant investment, and they offer researchers and their clients a set of tools, methods and possibilities they’ve never had before.

Jamie Hamilton is managing director of Nqual, an online qualitative software solutions and services provider. www.netfluential.com 

August | 2007