= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
AlexMennen comments on Attention Lurkers: Please say hi - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (617)
Hi.
Why would Less Wrong have an abnormally high percentage of lurkers? Also, being a lurker is not in black and white. For example. I mostly just lurk, but I post comments occasionally.
I think Less Wrong has an abnormally high percentage of lurkers because if participating at any web site is intimidating, participating at Less Wrong is especially intimidating because of the high level of discourse and English linguistic proficiency.
For the strictest definition of lurker, if you have registered for an account you are not or are not longer a lurker, but the definition is really not important.
I read the blog for two month before getting an account, and then continued to lurk, only upvoting and not commenting. I found that I felt like an observer without an account, and a silent participant with one.
Also, the karma system adds an additional barrier, at least in my mind. Knowing that your comment is going to be explicitly judged and your score added to a "permanent record" can be intimidating.
Whether we like it or not, that "intimidation" may be the single most important factor in keeping the level of discourse in the comments unusually high. Status games can be beneficial.
Indeed. I'm not saying the karma system is a bad thing.
This definition of lurker has the advantage of being clear-cut enough that numbers are meaningful, but does not represent as important a group in online community dynamics as the definition of lurker as someone who reads but does not post, regardless of whether or not he has an account.
Also, with that definition, I have not been a lurker for quite a while, and yet I appear to be accumulating free karma points for saying "hi" anyway. Not complaining.