[Air-l] Lurking

[michael gurstein]

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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