Defending the lurker
March 16, 2004
For most anyone who participates in online discussion lists, the term "lurker" usually carries a negative connotation. Conventional wisdom seems to hold the quiet lurker as deadweight, an intellectual parasite who consumes without giving anything back.
I've always had a hard time with that characterization. It seems to me that reading is a perfectly legimitate form of participation in any dialogue; and I've always been vaguely offended by the notion that the only valid participation in a community be measured in terms of one's verbal output. That feels like a coercive, almost fascistic sentiment. Like forcing people to vote.
Some recent bloggage about Lurking and social networks suggests how lurkers play a subtle but vital role in the formation of social networks, by establishing implicit bonds between otherwise tightly bound, inward-looking communities.
The question at hand is whether lurking behavior can be made more evident - e.g. through referrer logs, subscription lists - so that lurkers' implicit participation can take on more explicit and visible uses?
File under: User Experience
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