It seems to be my day for commenting... I think the term "lurker/lurking" is needlessly and misleadingly perjorative--suggesting someone observing with potentially ill-intent. I much prefer the term "monitoring"... I "monitor" a lot of lists without participating in them...reading them for ideas, references, trends. That is for me one of the special values of the Net and particularly email lists--a way to observe the passing parade in a particular area without a huge amount of on-going effort or resource expenditure. I'm delighted to have people "monitor" the lists I'm active in--sometimes out of the blue they will make a very useful contribution, or they will make a telling observation privately that they are unwilling to make publicly, or just that they may usefully pass on to others ideas or observations that they are gleaning from their silent "monitoring" activities. Also, I know from direct experience that in many cases, lists are being "monitored" by those, who because of their own situations or their perception of their own situations, are unable to directly contribute-- people in government, or corporations, for example. But they are certainly "monitoring" the discussions and I like to think that this "monitoring" is in some cases having a useful, perhaps even socially beneficial impact on otherwise inaccessible policy or corporate strategy deliberations. regs Mike Gurstein Michael Gurstein, Ph.D. (Visiting) Professor: School of Management New Jersey Institute of Technology Newark, NJ
On Tue, 22 Jan 2002, robert m. tynes wrote:
Has anyone come across research on *lurking*? I'm looking for any pertinent articles. Any suggestions?
Jenny Preece has been doing some intersting work on lurking. She is professor and chair in Information Systems at University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Check out: http://www.ifsm.umbc.edu/~preece/
david silver http://faculty.washington.edu/dsilver/
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