[Air-l] we need a better word than lurking

[jerichob at juno.com]

I like the concept of grazing, as well - as I said in my earlier post, 
I'm too used to the word "lurk" in its non-Internet usage to a) 
consider myself to be doing that, when I am not posting to lists, and 
b) consider others whose existence I am basically unaware of to be 
doing that.  

I am just curious:  for those who consider "lurking" to be problematic 
or undesirable - is it problematic for the lurkers (who, as John 
Veitch point out, may be missing a learning opportunity), or for the 
lurkees - the people on the lists who do participate regularly?  And 
if the latter, why?  I haven't done much - well, any - reading in this 
area, so I don't know what the arguments could be, though I can 
speculate.  Indeed, for some types of lists, I can see lack of 
participation becoming a problem.  My department's graduate student 
list, during the seven years I've been there, has gone from a place 
where we used to discuss intellectual topics relevant to our field as 
well as departmental policies and politics, to a place where people 
announce parties and free food opportunities.  Which are important, 
too, but the silence on other topics is deafening to the few of us who 
are still around from the "old days."  It's definitely a symptom of a 
bigger change in the community.  

But in academic or professional lists where there remain a number of 
active participants on a variety of topics, the lurker load doesn't 
seem to be problematic (unless it's a question of maintenance or 
something). Unless it just bothers people who don't know who is 
reading their posts, or there is a concern that the list may stagnate.

This thread was introduced because someone didn't think lurking should 
be considered a bad thing, and thus should have a label with less 
negative connotations, but in the discussion some fairly strong 
normative judgments about lurkers and lurking have emerged which seem 
to indicate that having a word with negative connotations is 
warranted.  It's interesting.

Jericho

-- "Martin Garthwaite" <marting at gmail.com> wrote:
Lurking has negative connotations, so I dislike it as a term also, I 
have
always thought of this activity as "grazing", implies a non malicious
activity of consuming what is freely available, as and when suits the 
grazer
and fits in very neatly with the concept of the commons. I picked up 
the
concept of grazing from Lessig.