Lurker

In Internet culture, a lurker is a person who reads discussions on a message board, newsgroup, chatroom or other interactive system, but rarely participates.

= History =

The term dates back to the mid-1980s, when most people did not have access to the Internet, but used Bulletin board system chat rooms and message boards instead.

Many internet communities advise Newbies to lurk for some time to get a feel for the specific culture and etiquette of the community, lest they make an inappropriate or redundant comment, ask a frequently asked question, or incite a flame war. This leads to the tongue-in-cheek command to lurk more .

There are also some who lurk on a forum habitually, and rarely, if ever, contribute. It is generally difficult to guess how many such lurkers are present, due to their silence.

= Malevolent lurkers =

Some lurkers may attempt to heavily involve themselves in the administration of a moderation_system forum by repeatedly alerting moderators to comments which offend their political or moral point of view, but refrain from participating in the discussion directly. Some of these lurkers occasionally post comments praising moderators, usually in a vain effort to curry favor. Lurk Manor Lurkers are the exception to this rule as they will post witty and anecdotal remarks in the forum itself.

= Benign lurkers =

Most lurkers, however, are simply shy, not educated on a given topic, or just not good at expressing their thoughts in written compositions. They enjoy reading others posts and responses to them, but refrain from adding their own contributions.

= Constructive lurkers =

The constructive lurker is a person who regularly reads online forums but rarely posts. These individuals may have a high degree of sophistication within the topic of any given forum, but lack the time or willingness to post the detailed replies they feel that the topic at hand deserves. Lurkers of this sort are not shy about posting, but instead prefer not to start a discussion they do not have the time to finish. When these lurkers do post, they often provide well thought-out and detailed contributions to the discussion at hand. A constructive lurker is often a veteran of several previous online discussion forums. Having been involved in many heated online discussions in the past these lurkers are often willing to allow the more active forum members to hash out the obvious and may only contribute when the discussion takes a novel turn.

= Trivia =

J. Michael Straczynski, the writer of the television science fiction series Babylon 5, decided to use the term lurkers to refer to the homeless space station inhabitants of Brown Sector because of their similarity to Internet lurkers.