Hi Barry, all, you might be interested in the following two works: Stegbauer, C. & Rausch, A. (2002). Lurkers in mailing lists. In B. Batinic, U.-D. Reips, & M. Bosnjak (Eds.), Online Social Sciences (pp. 263-274). Seattle: Hogrefe & Huber. Bosnjak, M. (2001). Participation in non-restricted web surveys: A typology and explanatory model for item non- response. In U.-D. Reips & M. Bosnjak (Eds.), Dimensions of Internet Science (pp. 193-208). Lengerich: Pabst. While the first one is from the area of social network theory, the second one proposes a highly useful typology of non-responders in online research. In Bosnjak's view, lurkers are just one of seven types. While created for online research, the typology seems useful for other purposes as well. Best --u At 15:48 Uhr -0400 7.5.2007, Barry Wellman wrote:
John Veitch gave us a useful post that showed that most people Lurk. Altho John didn't explicitly say so, the general implication is that Lurking Is a Bad Thing. But imagine if everybody was actively contributing all the time. We'd be filled with noise. (As it is, I wonder about some of the posts on this list, including mine;-)) I absolutely don't want my 13-year old cousin (whom I love dearly) to contribute to the Social Networks article, or probably anything else. Nor, in fact, do I want some ignorant person to contribute. I am not for credentialism, but I am for knowledge and expertise.
Indeed, 99% of the time, I am a Reader only of Wikipedia articles. I try only to contribute when I actually know something, like Social Network, Bronx High School of Science, and Barbra Streisand.
YMMV
Barry Wellman _____________________________________________________________________
Barry Wellman S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology NetLab Director Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162 wellman at chass.utoronto.ca http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman for fun: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php _____________________________________________________________________
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