‘Lurkers’ – who needs them? Should they be booted out or should we embrace people’s differences (some people are readers more than producer/writers?). Can’t there be different roles for the members of a community?
Whilst I agree that for a community to be a success, it needs to be contributed to and nurtured, I think that when you put material onto the web, you are inevitably making it available for anyone in the world with access to the internet to read or listen to. After that, isn’t it their right to do what they want with the information, whether that is adding to it and commenting on it, or simply taking it in? One of the best things about the internet is that it makes it easy for people to browse or skim and scan. There isn’t a responsibility of the user to contribute, if you have taken the time to put something on the internet then you should trust that some people might want to write back and accept that the nature of the internet means that there will be lurkers who will not.
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I agree to an extent that the world can see the information, but you can also put this information into private sites, which require passwords and such. Obviously hackers would be a problem, but it could be made private.
ReplyDeleteI raised the point in mine that people often don't live up to what they put online compared to face-to-face. In my view online communities offer more of a safe haven?