The size is an important factor in the ongoing community survival simply because this is related to the total number of postings and viewers (Koh et al., 2007). Consequently, it seems important to attract many community members, because more members generate more discussion. Especially in the start-up development period high activity in a community is important in order to lead to a successful community. Moreover, a large community entails a greater diversity in opinions and ideas and also creates a larger knowledge base. Building a large community seems to be beneficial, however, members seem to have difficulty gathering valuable information when a community is very large (McLure-Wasko & Faraj, 2000). Small communities build an intimacy that leads to fuller disclosure and richer insights.  The optimal size of a virtual community regarding effective communication is rather difficult to estimate and seems to be related to the needs and the effort involved, to perceived rewards, as well as the community’s role in the wider social network of the individual (Yeoman et al., 2003). A blogpost by Jeffrey Henning argues that the optimal community size is highly dependent on the purposes attached to the community. To ensure an ongoing community survival and encourage members to continue to interact, the optimal community size should be maintained. This means that new members should be attracted and current members will be leaving constantly.

A CoP normally is constructed of a core group of members that supply social and intellectual leadership and the other group of peripheral members (lurkers). In general it is considered that only 1 percent of members are active in posting and blogging. The critical mass is achieved when this active contributor base in a community is large enough to both satisfy the needs of the contributors as well as those of the lurkers (Tedjamulia et al., 2005). Too little contributors cause an inactive community and too many will lead to chaos and disorganized content if there is no effective organization and technological tools. A proper method for creating a successful critical mass is by checking whether a particular member is an active participant, a lurker or even inactive. The community manager should filter its members in order to create a more active community. The number of members needed for an active community might be lower when a few very active users produce enough content and results. These top-contributors are able to constitute the critical mass, activate and encourage lurkers and attract new members.

Community leaders should attempt to attract community builders to affect others to engage in the community. Moreover, through word-of-mouth communication or advertisements, leaders can accelerate network effects to achieve a perception of critical mass. In general, a large member-base is assumed to be beneficial, because this increases the amount of knowledge and its diversity available and can increase the competitive advantage of a company (Voelpel et al., 2008). Very large communities are usually structured into subgroups in order to encourage active participation (Wenger et al., 2002). In short, long-term participation depends on a sufficient base of content and interaction and on the community’s ability to organize the searching for information properly (Tedjamulia et al., 2005).
Literature:

• Koh, J., Kim, Y.G., Butler, B. & Bock, G.W. (2007). ‘Encouraging Participation in Virtual Communities’. Communications of the ACM; Vol. 50; No. 2; pp. 69-73
• McLure-Wasko, M. & Faraj, S. (2000). ‘‘It is what one does’: why people participate and help others in electronic communities of practice’. Journal of Strategic Information Systems; Vol.  9; No. 2-3; pp. 155 – 173
• Tedjamulia, S.J.J., Dean, D.L., Olsen, D.R. & Albrecht, C.C. (2005). ‘Motivating Content Contributions to Online Communities: Toward a More Comprehensive Theory’. Proceedings of the 38th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences; pp. 1-10
• Voelpel, S.C., Eckhoff, R.A. & Förster, J. (2008). ‘David against Goliath? Group size and bystander effects in virtual knowledge sharing’. Human Relations; Vol. 61; No. 2; pp. 271-295
• Wenger, E., McDermott, R. & Snyder, W.M. (2002). ‘Cultivating Communities of Practice: A guide to managing knowledge’. Boston: Harvard Business School Press

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