A Week Late and . . .

I missed another chance to celebrate. I learned from the dear blogger of the Northland that last week was National De-lurking Week.

Now last week I didn’t even know what de-lurking was. And this week I’m writing a post about it. Imagine that. Last week I had posted about being "a day late and . . ." So maybe I’m making progress. Or is that regressing?

Anyways, lurkers are those internet readers who visit a site anonymously and leave no trace of their presence. They contribute not to the discussion. In researching the term I found writers who were actually analyzing this phenomenon and categorizing these lurkers into different types. I found it all quite interesting.

Myself being a wikipedia lurker, I thought I would “sample” the categories found there:

1) malevolent lurkers – whiny moralists that complain to moderators
2) benign lurkers – those too shy to say anything
3) constructive lurkers – only comment when they have time to provide well-thought-out insights
4) smart-ass lurkers – you can probably figure out their modus operandi

Following these categories was an observation about the sometimes useful role of lurkers. Like a silent majority they can be called upon to garrison one’s position. To quote wikipedia:
“In flame wars, a person who is losing the argument and being ganged up on from all sides will sometimes make the claim that he is receiving email support from lurkers who are afraid join in the discussion. Such arguments are looked down upon since they cannot be proven without posting the emails, which is considered bad netiquette.
Such claims inspired Jo Walton to write the filk "Lurkers Support Me in Email".”

The lyrics to this filk can be found on wikipedia under lurker.

Now, we all need to find out what a filk is. Actually I now know what it is, but I’m not sure I should include that in this post on lurking. Two topics per post is too much especially on a Sunday.