Call me old-fashioned but the term doesn't bother me, and I'm a "Professional-Lurker." LOL I stick with the term "lurker" because it ties into the existing literature and media representation of those who watch but don't actively "talk" in online spaces. I think that is important. However, I do think we need to define the term so the meaning can move for its pejorative implications to a more positive definition. I often prefer to "redefine" a term rather then to let someone else's definition control my usage. Lois Ann Scheidt Doctoral Student - School of Library and Information Science, Indiana University, Bloomington IN USA Adjunct Instructor - School of Informatics, IUPUI, Indianapolis IN USA and IUPUC, Columbus IN USA Webpage: http://www.loisscheidt.com Blog: http://www.professional-lurker.com Quoting Nancy Baym <nbaym@ku.edu>:
Funny you mention that. Just a few minutes ago I was working on a paper and when I got to the point where I wanted to talk about "lurkers" I stopped and chose "invisible participants" instead.
Nancy
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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