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The number of participants structures the groups

A group working normally will thus have approximately 1 % of proactive people and 10 % of reactive people. It will be necessary to make efforts to increase the percentage of reactives to 20 %, see up to 40 % in very exceptional cases. In order to have a big group producing as much as a small group of a dozen people without requiring too much efforts, the group will have need at least a hundred participants to have at least about ten or dozen reactives.
Between twelve and hundred participants, we are thus in the case of an intermediate group: too big to allow us to keep the pace up with all that's happening and hence to manage it in a constraint way , and too small to do as well as groupe of a dozen persons without requiring major efforts of animation. Beyond a hundred contributors, it is possible with a reasonable investment, scale up and then have a group with over twelve active people Au-delà de cent participants, nous pouvons avec un investissement raisonnable, "passer à l'échelle" et avoir un groupe dont le nombre d'actifs dépasse la barrière des douze, on conditions that we take into account the reactive behaviors (at least 10%) and not only pro-active ones (at least 1%). There is also a high limit: beyond a thousand people, organizers and other proactive persons which undertake some tasks of management, are themselves a group of over twelve, jeopardizing the coherence of the group12. A group of several thousands people seems then more complex to manage. The French-speaking network of botanists Tela Botanica implemented intermediary members to identify better the proactive persons and started to constitute a group so they could exchange between them. Beyond, in groups of several dozen thousand members, the number of proactive persons soars, exceeding a hundred and allowing other forms of regulation and a centralized and collaborative governance. Some very large groups exist where management is not done by constraint but by opportunity. It happens for example with wide online projects such as the various linguistic versions of Wikipédia encyclopedia or else the collaborative mindmap. The understanding of what eases the implementation and the development of such big groups is still unclear.

To know more about the subject: for proactive persons, Internet is divided in three

When you wish to work with a large group which stays limited to few hundreds, even one or two thousands, it is imperative to seek to work with the reactive people (ten to up to some dozen %) and not limit yourself to the proactive ones (one and some %). on the internet, the difference.On the Internet, the difference is reflected in the notion of push and pull tools.

A pull tool is a tool which obliges to "pull" information from where it is. This is the case for conventional websites but also forums and major web 2.0 tools for which we must be proactive to get their information. On the contrary a push tool is aiming bring in (to "push") information to us, or more precisely to the tool we consult everyday. In our everyday life, its the answering machine (with a pull tool, we would have to question each of our friends' or boss' voicemail to see if there is not a message left for us or for the group... It's also like that with our letterbox that we check regularly and where our letters are sent. We then just have to "react" to what we received.

In the case of Internet, the push type app is mail. To work with several other people, est le courrier électronique. Pour travailler à plusieurs par exemple, mailing lists enable to exchange directly in each others' mailbox, without forcing people to go proactivelyy on the group's website. But there are now several sites which we consult regularly, Facebook, Twitter or other social networks. One of the major difficulties of working together with a great number of people is that we can't check everything sytematically: letterbox on the way back home, answering machines and voicemails, private and pro mailboxes, Facebook and Twitter professional or private accounts. More and more people only check regularly their mails, Facebook or Twitter, sometimes two of them. In terms of push tools, and so in a reactive approach, the internet is then divided in three, even if it is still possible to seek proactively information through channels we use less regularly.

In companies, there is often a privileged channel. For example the use of mail is compulsory and it is then possible to push information directly to the different employees. In this case, and to prevent proactive people from being frustrated - being the more motivated even if ten times fewer than the reactive people – it can be interesting to allow push as well as pull methods. It is possoble to associate a forum and a mail to get the advantages of a mailing list and the pull tools: when a new subject is posted on the forum, most contributors get it by mail. Then they just have to email back to and their answer will be on the forum. Those who wish to adopt a proactive approach but avoiding bllocking their mailbox can go straight on the forum to read the topics, other people's contributions and then contribute. According to the number of participants, and to avoid drowning those who receive the information by mail in too many messages, it is possible to adopt a reactive approach on all posts for the majority of the group (for groups limited to several hundred people)13 ; or to send emails only on former questions, or to receive by mail only the initial questions, a selection of contributions prepared by the managers and summaries of discussions for larger groups. Those who wish to get the details of all contributions must then get the information proactively on the forum14. Ideally, the choice of receiving all contributions or only important mails by push in his mailbox (questions, summaries, invitations ...) should remain the choice of participants, regardless of the group's size.15.

In the case of large groups bringing together people from different backgrounds (individuals, various organizations ...), when selecting a tool push, e.g emails or on the contrary Facebook, part of potential contributors are excluded. To avoid this, one must be able to get information and contribute through the channel he regularly uses. This tool which will enable to receive all exchanges or only initial questions and summaries through a chosen channel (Facebook, Twitter) and to answer simply directly with this tool, is still to be developped. This tool must also enable those who wish it, to get proactively contributions on a forum type tool and even contribute from it.