There must be lots of lurkers!!!!

Yvsa

Yvsa

Joined
May 18, 1999
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I was reading in another forum the other day about the estimated amount of lurkers that's common in forums. The number I think was mentioned is between 10 or 20 to one!!!!
That must be true according to the amount of hits on threads that are looked at, but not posted to in this forum.
This was also mentioned to be one of the busiest forums on BladeForums in the thread I was reading.
I wonder how much of that is the result of the Khukura/Phantom thread?:)

Can y'all just imagine what it would be like if all the lurkers started posting in here all at once?!?!?!?!?
Talk about the Cantina that Rusty named this one after, and who knows some of them just may be,....... Naaawwww.:D:D:D:D

Or do y'all think???????;)

But just look at how much more fun we could have!!!!!!!
Talk about a Feeding Frenzy when an UBDOTD went up!!!!:)
 
I think they did start, Yvsa. I have to think a long time to remember who is who here anymore.

You also have to remember you are seeing the spirit of these mutants from their "inside". Most of them look and act fairly normal at times, on the outside at least.
 
Some of them are the same people going back and reading through the thread to make sure they understand all the funny stuff. :p (The "Phantom" thread takes a while to read and usually you have to read it all in more than one sitting.)

I have 3 different computers that I read the forum from (school, work, and home). Sometimes I have to read the thread from all three times just to make sure that I havent missed something....and I also check in as the thread develops. Not to mention when I feel like I need to chime in and say something.

So I may read a thread 3-5 or maybe more times before or after I post.
So if there are 2 or 3 people like me out there we may be just throwing the "lurker figure" off.

People like me????
No, that is like saying that there are people like Tsimi, cant be any of those. Oh NO!!!!! another chapter of the Phantom page is unfolding as I speak!!!!! :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
 
Estimating the number of lurkers is pretty tricky. I'm sure that we can't even make any kind of decent approximation from the data that's publicly available such as the number of readers vs number of posts to any given thread. It's not even clear how we'd go about defining "lurker" here. Someone who has read but not posted in the past month? I don't know. I don't really imagine that when a person reads on a given day but does not post on that day that s/he ought to be considered a "lurker". Some posters are regular posters and some are less frequent posters but still not lurkers.

I would guess that I could probably come up with some kind of approximation from the server logs, but I don't have access to the server logs and I really don't think Spark ought to make those publicly available so I don't forsee having that kind of access. Even if I did, it could be pretty tricky to process them in such a way as to sort the addresses into ones who post from those who just read. Most of the IP addresses, in fact, probably are dynamic and change from day to day at least, so it becomes especially hard to estimate over longer periods of time.

It would be an interesting (academic) exercise to estimate the lurker:poster ratio, but Spark is really the only one who may have adequate data for even a rough guesstimate and considering that this ratio is probably not economically valuable to Spark, it's almost certainly not worth his time.

Paul
 
"lurker" is kind of perjorative, isn't it? I mean, lurker...skulker...dirtbag. I propose we come up with a kinder, gentler term for these frequent visitors. How 'bout "the quiet ones" or "the good listeners"?
 
I agree, Jance. I never thought the term was a proper definition for the curious or interested who elected not to be verbal.

To me "lurker" conjures up images of some evil character dressed in a black raincoat (with who knows what concealed beneath it) standing in a dark alley on a rainy night -- waiting -- for me? for you? For somebody or something?
 
I guess I'm a quasi lurker, I read every day, sometimes more than once but I don't post very often. I am also a member at a 1911 forum and their BBS software lists the number of guests and members at the bottom of the page. There are usually more lurkers than posters.
I don't mind the term lurker myself, after all my first ancester in America arrived from Ireland wearing the broad arrow for horse stealing! His son became a lawyer and J.P., but after that the family reformed and learned to make a living honestly.
 
There's no telling how the word "lurker" came to be the one to describe people reading but not posting in a forum or newsgroup. It would be interesting to know when it 1st came into use.

I also must be a "quasi lurker" in some forums here and other places as I post only occasionally in them, but the word "lurker" really doesn't hold the accepted and common meaning for me when used in the context of forums and such.
For me the word is one that has came to mean someone who reads but doesn't post and shows the on going evolution of the English Langauge, much the same as the word "pot" has evolved into sometimes meaning something other than an object that was generally used for
cooking.:D

It's a wonder that in this day and age of acronyms and invented words to describe things on the internet that another word hasn't been invented for use in the place of "lurker."
Someone missed a good chance, but then it may not be too late
yet.;)

Ron to sorta steal from a guys signature on the forums I will say......

"Lawyers gotta eat, same as buzzards." :rolleyes::D
 
This sense of the word "lurker" is (AFAICT) from usenet jargon. Standard advice (from "Emily Postnews":)) was to "lurk" for a while in a newsgroup before posting. It wasn't and isn't at all derogatory in this context.

Many of the oft-cited statistics on the lurker : poster ratio come from the old-time usenet from pre-internet days where you had to read and post news from an account on your local newsserver. Back then, "Arbitron" ratings were regularly collected, combined and published showing the relative popularity of various groups, including number of articles, number of readers and number of posters. Few newsserver admins are in a position to compile such reliable statistics at all nowadays and even fewer would publish them. I know that at Ball State, we could not have compiled reliable statistics at any time in the past 5 (or more likely 10) years and are even less able to do so now, even if anyone had the inclination, which no one here does.

Paul
 
Ron's story put me in mind of a true story. ( Hey, they put it in the Reno paper so it must be true, right? ).

A southern California lawyer wanted to get out of the area and move to rural Nevada, but he wasn't ready to retire yet. A small brothel on the eastern side of Nevada in a "cow county" ( the term is somewhat derogatory and refers to counties where there are supposedly more cows than voters ) came on the market, and he and his wife were interested, so she got licensed and went to work there to learn the business. It worked out and they bought the place. She promptly retired from active service and continued as the Madam and boss.

OK, now the guy's gone from being a Lawyer to a Pimp ( alright, technically a Brothel Owner ). With his wife doing most of the day to day running of the house that didn't keep him too busy. So one day the County newspaper's editor wanted to retire and put it up for sale. Voila! Churning the stuff out was right up the former lawyer's alley, and he bought the paper. So now he'd gone from lawyer to pimp to publisher of the "Local Liar".

He had a sense of humor though. When one of the Reno TV stations came of to do a "local color" spot on him he admitted he wasn't sure if his reputation in the community was on the rise or going to the dogs as owner of the scandal sheet.

Ain't that the truth though?
 
BruiseEasily, you have been delurked, "outed" so to speak, and it's your own doin'!

So now it's time to come out of the closet and pull up a chair next to the cracker barrel. You know you belong here with others who understand. You'll survive the humiliation :D
 
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