Lurker

Lurker ( engl. to lurk lurk, creep ) is a term for passive, so participants only read a newsgroup, a forum or a mailing list. The term comes from the network jargon, where the Lurker is originally a person in the warez scene downloads only software, but even upload nothing for others. Accordingly, the Lurker is considered pejorative. Lurker is also transferable to other social forums. Many irritated it when someone is reading everything they write, but nothing even reveal about themselves. The result is that " lurkers " or " Lurking " is used pejoratively under certain circumstances.

A study by Christian Bauer web and Alexander noise from the year 2000 show put on academic mailing lists Lurker always the majority of participants. Participants remain long in the position as the Lurker, the likelihood that they participate actively, vanishingly small.

Problematization

In its English-language articles Lurker demographics: Counting the silent scientists Nonnecke Blair and Jenny Preece problematize the concept of Lurkers and find that a definition is difficult. They provide, for example, the question in the room, if someone who never posting in the public space of debate, but to constantly individually exchanges with other discussion forum members, a lurker is. It is also unclear whether a person who carries a single post or eventually gets written quite a lot and is no longer active, but is reading, a lurker is.

Others

J. Michael Straczynski, the writer of the science fiction series Babylon 5, decided to use the term " lurker " for the inhabitants of the "Brown sector " because of their similarity to the internet lurkers.

In the official add-on to the computer game StarCraft exists a unit name Lurker. These creatures bury themselves in the ground and are invisible, even if they attack with their sharp spines from the bottom. You can watch everything that happens on the surface above them and remain undetected even about the attack also.

Lurkers are also in the Playstation 2 game Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy represented in many different ways.

In Siege of Avalon Lurker represent the enchanted members of an ancient people who live in the caves beneath Avalon and accept later return to their original shape.

Also in a computer game of the Lurker occurs as an animal, namely in ( so far) all parts of the game series Gothic. Here, the Lurker of many characters is described as a slimy, fast and sneaky amphibian that ejects guttural sounds and an omnivore is.