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

[James Whyte]

I am hoping that someone who is "more established" than I will challenge this argument.
   
  James 

elw at stderr.org wrote:
  

> Subject: Re: [Air-l] we need a better word than lurking
> 
> IMHO, the use of lurker, troll, flame, sockpuppet etc. is the language 
> of folklore and not the language of scholarship. For that reason they 
> lack operational definition and carry with them the negative 
> connotations of fokloric understanding. Various scholars on this list 
> have challenged their use. Susan Lange comes to mind.


Folk understandings and scholarly understandings of terminology are often 
not terribly different.

Terms such as "troll" have consensus-based definitions, evolved over a 
period of many years. I don't think anyone would disagree that a "troll" 
is someone who is violating the established, historical conventions of the 
listserv in an antagonistic fashion. "Flaming", or making caustic remarks 
toward, the established principals (or other active participants) of an 
organization is certainly trollish behavior. We call the folks who do 
this out of a lack of understanding of the group's norms "newbies", or 
"n00bs", who may find the group's reactions rather perplexing due to their 
(the newbie's) lack of understanding of pre-existing relationships.

Is this a set of folk definitions, or scholarly? It would pass in many 
circles as either, depending on the experiences and situatedness of the 
reader. Each term certainly has a workable operationalization - claims to 
the contrary fall short of argumentative aims...

--elijah
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