[Air-l] Lurking

[Michael Gurstein]

The "Free Rider" concept suggests to me that the value of e-lists are in
their content.  Rather, I would suggest, the real value of an e-list comes
from participation, thus those who are only "monitoring/lurking" are not
getting as much value from the list (feedback, recognition, networking and
so on), as those who are actively participating.

Mike Gurstein

Michael Gurstein, Ph.D.
(Visiting) Professor:  School of Management
New Jersey Institute of Technology
Newark, NJ

-----Original Message-----
From: air-l-admin at aoir.org [mailto:air-l-admin at aoir.org]On Behalf Of
Karim R. Lakhani
Sent: January 23, 2002 5:44 PM
To: air-l at aoir.org
Subject: Re: [Air-l] Lurking


ha!  made you de-lurk :-)

i was not implying that everyone should participate in every
conversation but it would seem that people should participate in a
discussion that is appropriate. like you did! i am against full time
free-riding. it would be interesting for the list owner of this list to
calculate the free rider component of this list.  i.e. how many have
signed on and how many have participated even once, vs pure
non-participants.
thus your appearance is welcome!

thanks

"E. Sean Rintel" wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> I suppose it is poetic justice that I feel the need to de-lurk to add to
> the lurking thread...
>
> Responding to Karim R. Lakhani's comments:
>
> >I guess there are no costs involved in someone lurking on an e-mail list
> >but what about the opportunity cost to the community by that person not
> >participating.  Are they just free riding on the effort of the dedicated
> >contributors?  Would their participation and information provision help
> >the community members?
>
> The implication here is that everyone on a list should be active, which
> seems neither probable, reasonable, or desireable.
>
> Probable: Not everyone has an interest in every topic discussed on a list.
>
> Reasonable: If A agrees with B entirely, why should A waste the list's
time
> by simply posting in an "I agree". Not wasting bandwidth in that fashion
> has, indeed, been part of netiquette for a long time.
>
> Desireable: Adding to both the above points, imagine the immense traffic
> involved with everyone on this list posting just once to every comment...
> it would be an expoentially disasterous situation of information overload.
> Furthermore, is it not somewhat draconian to expect everyone to voice an
> opinion to everything? Social life simply does not work like that. Not
> everyone offers an opinion about everything said at a party, and despite
> the difference in system-level structure an email list is not so different
> as to either negate deeply entrenched social norms, nor to impose new
ones.
> If that was the case, I suspect people would stop using such systems.
>
> This brings us to:
>
> >What would happen if those 15% started their own private list?
>
> Completely closed lists, like completely closed clubs, have limited
> shelf-lives. Without an influx of new members a list goes stale. Also, if
> an active 15% started a new list, the chance that every member would stay
> active would be very limited. In fact, perhaps 15% activity holds for
> almost any sized list - I doubt it's so clear cut, but judging by previous
> posts on group activity, it is more probable than, to take the opposite,
> 85% activity. Furthermore, to revitalize a closed list new members are
> needed - even if only by invitation - and when that occurs, the notions of
> probability, reasonableness, and desireability are likely to apply once
again.
>
> Personally, I value being able to drop in and out of lists. And, I might
> add, when I'm new to a list I wait a fair while before posting for the
> first time, to get the flavor of the social group that I'm dealing with
and
> also to make sure I have something to say. I've also noted that my list
> activity is cyclical. Sometimes I'm a list maniac, other times I prefer to
> a monitor. Why this is I'm not sure - a combination of personal
> circumstances and the topics on the list, I suppose. Actually, that brings
> me to a final point: I like to do other things than being an active
> list-member, but I like to know what's going on, so I monitor. I am part
of
> the 'interested' community, so I don't feel that I am 'sponging from the
> list'. Opportunity cost, if that is going to be a notion used to calculate
> list-member value, has a problem in that it must involve the opportunity
> costs of the rest of my life.
>
> Speaking of which, I must dash, and thus Until Anon,
>
> Sean
>
> --
>
> E. Sean Rintel
> Communication Department
> University at Albany
> State University of New York
> Albany, NY, USA, 12222
> http://www.albany.edu/~er8430/
>
> _______________________________________________
> Air-l mailing list
> Air-l at aoir.org
> http://www.aoir.org/mailman/listinfo/air-l

--
===================================
Karim R. Lakhani
MIT Sloan School of Management
MIT Open Source Research Project
e-mail: lakhani at mit.edu
voice:  617-851-1224
fax:    617-344-0403
http://opensource.mit.edu
http://mit.edu/lakhani/www
===================================

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