to lurk or not to lurk

[Carl Reimann <reimann@ACCESS2.DIGEX.NET>]

In my management of six forums, most of which have to do
with education, I have given some thought to the question
of lurking. I have never particularly cared for the term,
because of its negative connotation. One effort I have
made on my forums is to communicate with individual members
to the extent possible, time permitting. What I discovered
in doing this was that virtually everyone on my forums was/
is an astute character doing interesting work of some sort.
This is a second reason why I have preferred to avoid use
of the word "lurk"; I _know_ from personal correspondence
that almost 100% of a list's members are high-quality
people.

I have, however, tried to find ways to enable their contri-
butions, precisely because of my understanding that they all
have valuable work experience and good questions. In this
sense I work against "lurking". My main strategy has been
to deliberately shift discussion subjects over time so that
as wide a selection of list members as possible will have
their particular key subject touched upon at one point or
another. I've had a good bit of success stimulating diverse
participation, and I think this strategy has something to
do with it. One point to remember is that lists vary quite
a bit in their nature; I think that the more analytical
lists tend more toward domination by a tiny fraction of
members, while the more technical, or professional task-
oriented, lists tend much more easily toward diverse parti-
cipation (perhaps because technical knowledge is more
diffuse in a population than is the tendency to analyze in
a group setting).

Just my thoughts.

Carl Reimann
R&R Publishers, Inc., MD
reimann@access.digex.net
  (E-mail address may be fingered for details about lists)
gopher www.digimark.net   http://www.digimark.net/educ/home.html