First of all thanks for letting me know my comments we’re open.

I personally don’t have any problems with lurkers. I think many people consider themselves lurkers when really we’re talking about people who contribute less than the average participators.
That’s not necessarily bad and certainly is a community dynamic that always will exist. Understanding the Power Law of Distribution makes this not only possible but valuable. Your single response may well be the most important idea here. While you’ve only made one contribution to this blog, it’s significant.

We also need to allow people to dip their toe in the water and be okay with their place. My only fear is that by “lurking” we mean not contributing at all. At some point in a participatory world, you can only take, but you must give. We need to perhaps re-define “giving” and “sharing” but if we want to move beyond surface engagement to true community, we have to dive in.

Do you consider people who subscribe to your blog through RSS as lurkers?

We can encourage change, even strong arm some, but until people get comfortable posting responses without fear of repercussions or posting something that will haunt them late in life, many people are comfortable just reading.

Sometimes I find a blog post where I want to post a response and the response is either blocked for spam or in the case of this post, no post without a Word Press log in. It doesn’t mean we are lurkers, we just value our time differently. We tend not to reply if our responses will be blocked or we have to log in to something that we can’t access w/out OpenID.

Judging others as lurkers or trying to understand them…well just isn’t on my priority list right now, but I am a busy person.

I might have tried the webcam or audio only version but I am leery that I will be asked to log on again.

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Hmmm. I’m a skeptic. Well presented, well prepared, and well scripted. The talker sounds a bit too confident to be one of your general lurkers. But he did get one thing straight. There’s a hellafalot of them and they all have their own reasons for not participating. I’m not so sure about the humility bit though. Me? I’m the most humble person I know.

Catchya later
from Middle-earth

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