Lurking and lurking

[norwich36]

::Waving at everyone:: I've been travelling a lot, if you've wondered where I've been lately. And today is my last day to play on lj for a while, since I'm going on a work-related wilderness retreat tomorrow, with no net access for several days (*sob*).

But while I'm still here, I wanted to do a poll. I just read this entry on metafandom, discussing a Guardian essay which suggests that "of 100 people online in a given community, only one will produce content. Ten will comment on it, and the other 89 will simply view it." cofax7 tends to disagree with this statistic, at least in reference to lj, but I'm not so sure.

As you know, I lurked for years myself, so I'm more inclined to think there are quite a few people out there who are reading along (and maybe feeling connected to fandom) who talk little or not at all on lj. In fact, I imagine there are lots of lurkers reading out there who don't even have lj accounts. Ok, maybe they're not reading my exciting journal--clearly their loss-- but they're probably reading journals of their favorite authors.

SO here's a poll just for lurkers! Lurkers--that is, people who almost never or never comment or post entries on lj-- come take my poll! If you don't have an lj account, feel free to answer the poll questions anonymously in my comments; behind the cut I'll put a cut-and-pasteable version of the poll. And if you want to delurk long enough to explain why you lurk, feel free to do so in the comments.


[Poll #782913]



1. _______I define myself as a lurker and I am taking this poll.
2. I feel a sense of connection to the people I read on livejournal, even though I seldom/never comment:
______Yes
______No
______Sometimes

3. I lurk because:
_____I am shy
_____ I don't have time to actively participate
______I feel that I don't have anything to add to the conversation
______I prefer to stay in the background
______Other

4. Elaborate on "other":

5. I have been lurking for:
____under three months
____3-6 monts
____6 months-1 year
____over one year
____over two years

6. Will I ever delurk?
___No, I'm happy remaining a lurker
___Maybe, if I work up the courage
___Yes, when I have something to add to the discussion
___Yes, when I have more time

(Cut and paste into the comment box; put "X" on the appropriate line). Or feel free to just write answers in the comments).



And all you non-lurkers out there: did you ever lurk? Here I'm talking about more than hanging out for a couple weeks getting the lay of the land--let's say to call yourself a former lurker you had to have lurked for at least 6 months. If so, why? And what made you delurk? Since you're all claiming to no longer be lurkers, I'm going to make you actual comment to respond to this, rather than giving you ticky boxes!

Comments

[norwich36.livejournal.com]

Clearly we need a new category for semi-lurkers (periodic lurkers? Situational lurkers?) because your experience seems to be fairly common.

I just wanted to comment on this: There are people who can post replies that are well-thought-out, intelligent, and on-topic, and then there are people like me who ramble on for eons about stuff nobody else cares about. In my experience, the people who post well-thought-out, intelligent commentary ALSO post a lot of rambling stuff nobody cares about (or at least, that *I* don't care about). Nobody is all one or all the other. I know that's important for me to remember, since I'm always fighting my own inner censor. And for the record, this comment didn't ramble at all; it was quite pertinent and to-the-point.

Since you say you're trying to move beyond lurking, I'd encourage you to friend some folks you read all the time. They may or may not friend you back, but I wouldn't worry so much about them wondering about who this random stranger is. (It's instructive to enter the name of a BNF on marnanel's joule site; in a given week they may have anywhere between 10 and 40 people friend and defriend them.) People with smaller flists will probably stop by and see who you are, and may friend you back, so you will get to know them, and they won't be random strangers anymore.