[Air-l] "lurking"

[Alexander Semenov]

Actually, I've totally missed the plot of the great taxonomic discussion  
about lurkers and so on, but reading an article about online focus group  
I've revealed the following passage:
"The existence of ‘lurkers’ may lead to
group fading, as some active participants may be disheartened to continue  
with the
discussion when they fail to get any feedback, verbal or non-verbal, from  
others."
(Cher Ping, Lim and Seng Chee, Tan Online discussion boards for focus
group interviews: an exploratory study. Journal of Educational Enquiry,  
Vol. 2, No. 1, 2001).
Actually this part devoted only to online focus groups, but, however...
Before that (I mean listserv's discussion and article) I had nothing  
against lurkers, as I'm usually one of them.
But now, I remembered why different online communities "die" and I think,  
that one of the reasons is a lack of feedback
 from potential audience. Especially at "start up" period. For example, I  
used to prepare electronic versions of texts for seminars in LJ community  
of my group,posted useful links, tried to start some discussions and so  
on. But without decent response (an even simple "thanks!")I ceased my  
attempts. Not every person can fuel his activity with a pure enthusiasm  
after all.
So, my point is that "lurking" indeed has negative effects especially in  
the "new born" communities. In old, established virtual communities with  
thousands of participants, local "centralities" and celebrities and so on  
lurkers are quite normal, usual and absolutely not dangerous or irritating  
part of "audience".
Sorry, I really don't have time to read through all the discussion about  
lurkers, so, I'm pretty sure, that someone have already told smth like  
this.
Best wishes,
Alexander Semenov.