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

[Martin Garthwaite]

James,

You're correct, but I'n not sure what you're describing is lurking. Many
years ago I was a sysop on a Novell newsgroup / usenet supporting a
commercial companies products for free, why? Well when I needed the answer
to a question I would go to the support group and look for answers, it just
so happened that I knew the answers to a lot of questions that others were
posting so I would answer them. Novell staff monitored this group, but did
not provide answers to questions. If an individual posted enough quality
asnwers they would invite you to become a sysop (system operator). The point
I'm making is that a list server such as this distributes to all members,
just because you may not be interested in 90% of what comes your way does
not make you a lurker. When you need an answer or advice you often get it,
that's the point right? If I know the answer to a questioned asked I will
answer it, it maybe once a week, once a month, once a year.

On 5/10/07, James Howison <jhowison at syr.edu> wrote:
>
> There's an excellent, well known study of the Apache user support
> lists which, if I may hazard a summary, found that 98% of the time
> spent with the list was reading, not posting, and that the primary
> motivation for being on the list, by far, was learning by reading
> (thus observing the question/answer exchanges).  This was enough to
> keep enough people on the list so that questions could be answered
> without great effort because one of the group attracted by reading
> knew the answer 'off the top of their head'.
>
> So the lurking, and the learning by lurking, is crucial to the
> 'critical mass' of the list.  Learning by talking/doing, as John
> writes below, is great, but learning by reading is also crucial to
> the effectiveness of these task-oriented communities.
> Lakhani, K. and von Hippel, E. (2003). How open source software
> works: "free" user-to-user assistance. Research Policy, 32:923–943.
>
> http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/lakhanivonhippelusersupport.pdf
>
> Cheers,
> James
>
>

-- 
Martin Garthwaite

PhD candidate, London Knowledge Lab www.lkl.ac.uk

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