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

[elw at stderr.org]

> Subject: Re: [Air-l] we need a better word than lurking
> 
> I am hoping that someone who is "more established" than I will challenge 
> this argument.


Really, what's to challenge?  These are my opinions and observations, 
formed over a fairly long period of time, and I'm not likely to change 
them.

A further question - what, really, is the problem with negatively-connoted 
terms?  They are assigned to actions that are most frequently understood 
as highly obnoxious: one almost *expects* the descriptive terms to accrue 
emotional baggage.

What, exactly, is your beef with trolls?

--elijah


>  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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