I've been meaning to write this diary for some time now. As a person who "lurked" here before deciding to dive in, take the plunge and both comment and write diaries, I've been curious about "lurkers" on DKos, and wondered often about "who you are" and "why you lurk".
If on an off chance you happen to read this, I'd be interested in hearing from you. I am not usually a "poll poster" but will add a poll to this diary in order to allow those who wish to remain as anonymous lurkers to do so.
First I'd like to tackle the term lurk - and how we use it in Net-speech.
Wikipediahas this brief entry:
In Internet culture, a lurker is a person who reads discussions on a message board, newsgroup, chatroom, file sharing or other interactive system, but rarely if ever posts or participates.
History
The term dates back to the mid-1980s. Because BBSs were often accessed by a single phone line (frequently in someone's home), there was an expectation that all who used a bulletin board would contribute to its content by uploading files and posting comments. Lurkers were viewed negatively, and might be barred from access by the sysop, if they did not contribute anything but kept the phone line tied up for extended periods.
By contrast, many modern Internet communities now advise newbies to lurk for some time to get a feel for the specific culture and etiquette of the community, lest they make an inappropriate or redundant comment, ask a Frequently Asked Question, or incite a flame war. This leads to the tongue-in-cheek command to "lurk more", often intentionally misspelled as "lurk moar". The verb to "de-lurk" means to start contributing actively to a community having been a lurker previously.
There are also some who lurk on a forum habitually, and rarely, if ever, contribute. It is generally difficult to guess how many such lurkers are present, due to their silence. In flame-wars, a participant who is losing an argument will sometimes claim to receive email support from lurkers. This inspired Jo Walton to write a filk on the subject entitled "The Lurkers Support Me in Email".
The Urban dictionary provides this definitions (among others)
- lurking
spying on people online, while you remain invisible
Even though he claims to be "In a MUCH better place",J spends his days lurking online, to see who is talking to who.
(spying, coveting, hiding, looking, watching)
Our estimable statistician jotter provides daily details on how many lurkers DKos has( they are registered here; this is not data on hits/reads from non-registrants)
For example, today he documented yesterday's data:
Active Kogs: 4703 (writes a diary, recommends a diary, or comments on a diary)
Lurkers: 5767 (only view diaries)
More than half of the folks registered here don't post or comment or rec, but seem to read.
Why, I wonder?
As a cultural anthropologist, and media studies person, my curiosity is whetted. I've also been active online since the early days of Bulletin Boards and Usenet (though am a Jane-come-lately to "blogging".
I decided to examine what other research has been done on this "phenomena".
I chuckled when I discovered scholarly treatises on the subject.
From Computers in Human Behavior I found:
The Top 5 Reasons For Lurking: Improving Community Experiences For Everyone
Here is the abstract:
Even in busy online communities, usually only a small fraction of members post messages. Why do so many people prefer not to contribute publicly? From an online survey that generated 1,188 responses from posters and lurkers from 375 MSN bulletin board communities, 219 lurkers spoke out about their reasons for not posting. While lurkers did not participate publicly, they did seek answers to questions. However, lurkers’ satisfaction with their community experience was lower than those who post. Data from 19 checkbox items and over 490 open-ended responses were analyzed. From this analysis, the main reasons why lurkers lurk were concerned with: not needing to post; needing to find out more about the group before participating; thinking that they were being helpful by not posting; not being able to make the software work (i.e., poor usability); and not liking the group dynamics or the community was a poor fit for them. Two key conclusions were drawn from this analysis. First, there are many reasons why people lurk in online discussion communities. Second, and most important, most lurkers are not selfish free-riders. From these findings, it is clear that there are many ways to improve online community experiences for both posters and lurkers. Some solutions require improved software and better tools, but moderation and better interaction support will produce dramatic improvements.
Another bloggersummarized the results as follows:
shy about posting
want to remain anonymous
posting is of no value to me
messages or group low quality
wrong group
long delay getting response
concern about aggressive responses
fear of commitment
new members treated poorly
nothing to offer (22%)
others have said it
still learning about the group (29%)
had no intention of posting
no requirement to post
just reading/browsing is enough (53%)
not enough time
do not know how to post
too many messages
Another study addresses "De-lurking"
De-lurking in virtual communities: a social communication network approach to measuring the effects of social and cultural capital
by: S Rafaeli, G Ravid, V Soroka
from their abstract:
Often, lurkers are the vast majority. There could be many reasons for lurking. Lurking can be measured and perhaps affected by both dispositional and situational variables. This project investigates social and cultural capital, situational antecedents of lurking and de-lurking. We propose a novel way of measuring such capital, lurking, and de-lurking. We try to figure out what are the triggers to active participation. We try to answer this by mathematically defining a social communication network of activities in authenticated discussion forums.
And much to my delight I found a Master's thesis:
The Invisible People: Social and Cultural Capital and Lurking and De-lurking on the Internet
Vladimir Soroka
So, there is research. I wonder, are Daily Kos lurkers the same as other lurkers? If not, how do you differ? Do some people lurk here and post elsewhere? Did some people used to post here, and now "only" lurk, or infrequently post or rec?
I thought about my own reasons for lurking here initially. They were a mixed bag. I wasn't sure I was a "Democrat". I felt like I might be "too old" here. (Actually Granny Doc inspired me to dive in) Didn't know if black folks were welcome, or even if welcome perhaps I should dedicate my time to the "Afro-sphere" or to Latino/a blogs.
There was a lot more, but at the risk of driving you away (if you have gotten this far), I will refrain from further citation, and personal musings.
Before I close, I have to say that I have never liked the term, but I guess we are stuck with it. In my head the term "lurk" has negative connotations, perhaps because it rhymes with "murk".
Anyway, thanks for reading and please, de-lurk, at least to take the poll.
(I respectfully request that those who have never been lurkers here - don't take the poll but feel free to jump into the discussion, or share your opinions.)