Lurker
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- For the punk group, see The Lurkers
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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 participates.
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[edit] History
The term dates back to the mid-1980s, when most people did not have access to the internet, but used BBS chat rooms and message boards instead.
Because BBS's 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.
Many internet communities 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". 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.
[edit] Malevolent lurkers
Some lurkers may attempt to heavily involve themselves in the administration of a moderated forum by repeatedly alerting moderators to comments which offend their political or moral point of view, but refrain from participating in the discussion directly. Some of these lurkers occasionally post comments praising moderators, usually in an effort to curry favor.
[edit] Benign lurkers
Most lurkers, however, are either shy, feel inadequately educated on a given topic, or are uncomfortable expressing their thoughts in written form on email lists. They enjoy reading others' posts and responses to them, but refrain from adding their own contributions. They have been known to send comments off-list, to individual posters, which are frequently positive.
[edit] Constructive lurkers
The constructive lurker is a person who regularly reads online forums but rarely posts. These individuals might have a high degree of sophistication within the topic of any given forum, but are unwilling to post detailed replies. Lurkers of this sort are not shy about posting. When these lurkers do post, they often provide well thought-out and detailed comment to the discussion at hand. A constructive lurker is often a veteran of several previous online discussion forums. Having been involved in many heated online discussions in the past, these lurkers often only contribute when the discussion takes a novel turn.
[edit] Smart-Ass lurkers
The "smart-ass lurker" is a person who watches a discussion take place, only to intervene with a derisive comment or "gotcha" comment that sends up the active participants (from a smug, detached position).
[edit] Gaia Online
On Gaia Online, lurking is in-depth because of Gaia's unique forum system and its extracurricular activities. Lurking on Gaia is a popular way to make money because it involves little to no effort. However, after a few hours of lurking, the gold received begins to diminish until it becomes only the equivalent of pennies. At that point, the user will probably not receive gold from lurking for a few hours, if he or she leaves immediately after the cessation of gold income.
Lurking has its downsides. Many users abuse this feature by hitting refresh (F5) or use bots to refresh faster, which gains vast amounts of gold because there is little refresh time on the pages and: Less load = More refreshes = More gold. This method is not as foolproof as it seems. Gaia can place trackers on users who refresh often/rapidly if they are suspected botters. Also, if you are caught, the gold could be taken away, and in extreme cases, your account can be banned.
[edit] Pop Culture
J. Michael Straczynski, the writer of the television science fiction series Babylon 5, decided to use the term "lurkers" to refer to the homeless space station inhabitants of Brown Sector because of their similarity to Internet lurkers (see Internet marketing and fan influence on Babylon 5).
There is an email archiving tool (http://lurker.sourceforge.net) of the same name.
A singer/songwriter project from Germany named itself "200 Lurkers" (http://www.200lurkers.com)
[edit] External links
- Participation Inequality: Lurkers vs. Contributors in Internet Communities - Article with several examples of the large percentage of users who lurk and guidelines for encouraging more participation.
