About Lurkers

Yesterday was "Love Our Lurkers" day; an annual event that I believe was initiated by Bonnie at My Bottom Smarts...

I didn't get the memo. By the time I noticed what was happening, it was well into the late part of the day, and it didn't seem to me like there was much point in jumping in after all everyone else had left the party. I looked around a bit, reading all the clever and creative invitations issued to the ubiquitous lurkers -- and found I had not a single thing to say about the whole business.

I have, however, been pondering those lurkers and the social implications of lurking. As with so many other things that I wonder about, I turned to Google (what did we do before Google?) to see if I could get some sort of workable definition of the term. There I found that lurkers are people who read, but do not participate in online communities, such as forums, discussion groups, blogs, and wikis. The one per cent rule-of-thumb suggests about one per cent of people contribute new content to an online community, another nine percent comment, and the rest lurk. ...

If something like 90% of all those who read within any given web community do not otherwise participate, there must be some reason (or perhaps reasons) why that occurs. Why do people read, often regularly, and yet never participate? Maybe...

• Maybe they feel incomptent to participate; intimidated by a perceived level of expertise or intellect beyond what they believe they possess.
• Maybe they are simply passive observers who read blogs in the same way they might watch a sitcom on television.
• Maybe they are feeling new and uncertain and are waiting to feel "experienced" enough to join in the conversation.
• Maybe they worry about establishing an online identity that could possibly be traced or tracked -- a legitimate concern for privacy risks.
• Maybe they are simply shy and introverted.
• Maybe they feel they have nothing valuable or helpful to add to the conversation.
• Maybe they feel pressures related to time or personal energy and so limit their participation to a minimum.
• Maybe they are simply voyeuristic and not interested in "creating a connection."

There are likely a dozen other possibilities that I haven't thought of. That list though, does cause me to consider the potential for the annual Love our Lurkers event to accomplish what it advertises as its purpose. As I have watched over the years, it seems clear that the pervasive invitations on this day result in very few actual delurks. Does our cajoling, entreating, insisting come across as welcoming and friendly? Do we manage to actually speak to all those anonymous lurkers in a language that reaches out to them? Or is it possible that our annual round robin of visiting here and there and leaving comments for each other, misses the mark altogether? Perhaps as we connect with each other we draw an even more intimidating picture of our very tight-knit community -- and make it harder for our lurkers to decide to risk joining in? I just don't know...

I don't actually spend much time or energy thinking about my lurkers. I know they are there. Every now and then, one of them decides to jump in and take part. Any and all of them are always welcome to do just that -- on any day of the year. As for that other, much larger mass of folks. They come to visit here for reasons of their own, and they take away whatever it is that they find of value (whether wisdom or entertainment or pure titillation). We share this space without ever interacting with one another. And, to tell the truth? If every lurker chose to suddenly open up and let loose with a barrage of comments, I'd be completely overwhelmed. I guess I like my conversational circle small enough to keep track of.

swan