Lurker demographics: counting the silent

ABSTRACT

As online groups grow in number and type, understanding lurking is becoming increasingly important. Recent reports indicate that lurkers make up over 90% of online groups, yet little is known about them.

This paper presents a demographic study of lurking in email-based discussion lists (DLs) with an emphasis on health and software-support DLs. Four primary questions are examined. One, how prevalent is lurking, and do health and software-support DLs differ? Two, how do lurking levels vary as the definition is broadened from zero posts in 12 weeks to 3 or fewer posts in 12 weeks? Three, is there a relationship between lurking and the size of the DL, and four, is there a relationship between lurking and traffic level?

When lurking is defined as no posts, the mean lurking level for all DLs is lower than the reported 90%. Health-support DLs have on average significantly fewer lurkers (46%) than software-support DLs (82%). Lurking varies widely ranging from 0 to 99%. The relationships between lurking, group size and traffic are also examined.

REFERENCES

• 1: Jargon Dictionary. Lurker Def'mition. Available at http:// www.netmeg.net/j argon.
• 2: Katz, J. Luring the Lurkers. Available at http:// slashdot, org/features/98/12/28/1745253, shtml.
• 3: Kollock, P., and M. Smith. Managing the virtual commons: cooperation and conflict in computer communities. In Proc. Computer-Mediated Communication: Linguistic, Social and Cross-Cultural Perspectives, edited by S. Herring. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1996, 109-128.
• 4: L-Soft International. List search. Available at http:// www .lso ft. co m/lists/list q.h tml.
• 5: L-Soft International. List with 1,000 subscribers or more. Available at http://www.lsoft.com/scripts/wl.exe? XS= 1000.
• 6: L-Soft International. LISTSERV-- The mailing list management classic. Available at http://www.lsoft.com/ listserv.stm.
• 7: Mason, B. Issues in virtual ethnography. In Proc. Ethnographic Studies in Real and Virtual Environments: Inhabited Information Spaces and Connected Communities (Edinburgh, 1999), 61-69.
• 8: McMillan, S. J. Who pays for content? Funding in interactive media. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 4, 1, (1998), Available at http://www. ascusc.org/j cmc/vol4/issue 1/mcmillan.html.
• 9: Nonnecke, B. Lurking in email-based discussion lists. Ph.D. thesis: SCISM. London: South Bank University, 2000.
• 10: Blair Nonnecke , Jennifer Preece, Persistence and Lurkers in Discussion Lists: A Pilot Study, Proceedings of the 33rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences-Volume 3, p.3031, January 04-07, 2000
• 11: Nonnecke, B., and J. Preece. Shedding light on lurkers in online communities. In Proe. Ethnographic Studies in Real and Virtual Environments: Inhabited Information Spaces and Connected Communities (Edinburgh, 1999),123-128.
• 12: Parks, R. M., and K. Floyd. Making friends in cyberspace. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 1, 4, (1996), Available at http://www.ascusc.org/ jcmc/voll/issue4/parks.html.
• 13: Jenny Preece, Empathic communities: reaching out across the Web, interactions, v.5 n.2, p.32-43, March/April 1998 [doi>10.1145/274430.274435]
• 14: Preece, J., and K. Ghozati. Empathy online: A review of 100 online communities. In Proc. Association for Information Systems, 1998 Americas Conference (Baltimore, MD, 1998).
• 15: Teresa L. Roberts, Are newsgroups virtual communities?, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.360-367, April 18-23, 1998, Los Angeles, California, United States [doi>10.1145/274644.274694]
• 16: Stemstein, M. Statistics: Barton's Educational Series, Inc., Hauppauge, NY, 1996.
• 17: TECHWR-L. About the Digest Reader. Available at http ://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/digestreader.html.
• 18: Steve Whittaker , Candace Sidner, Email overload: exploring personal information management of email, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems: common ground, p.276-283, April 13-18, 1996, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada [doi>10.1145/238386.238530]
• 19: Steve Whittaker , Loren Terveen , Will Hill , Lynn Cherny, The dynamics of mass interaction, Proceedings of the 1998 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work, p.257-264, November 14-18, 1998, Seattle, Washington, United States [doi>10.1145/289444.289500]
• 20: Worth, E. R., and T. B. Patrick. Do electronic mail discussion lists act as virtual colleagues. In Proc. AMIA Annual Fall Symposium (1997), 325-329.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.4 INFORMATION SYSTEMS APPLICATIONS
      H.4.3 Communications Applications

          Nouns: Internet

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.1 MODELS AND PRINCIPLES
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)

General Terms:
Design, Human Factors, Management, Measurement, Performance, Theory

Keywords:
BBS, demographic, discussion list, email, health-support, lurker, lurking, membership, newgroup, traffic