Lurkers

[valis2]

lady_branwyn was recently discussing a recent article in an online pub called AlertBox. She mentions this in her entry:

In any on-line community, participation follows a 90/9/1 rule, where 90% of users lurk and never participate, 9% of users participate occasionally, and 1% of users seem to have no life outside of the Internet...

It really made me wonder about how LJ fits in with that. I mean, a lot of people don't comment on the flist even though they read it, but they have journals, which is definitely some form of participation.

I just can't imagine that people are even looking at my LJ without being friended. I mean, sure, passing glances, but I can't imagine much more than that. With the above formula, it would imply that a thousand people are watching this journal and not interacting. Or perhaps I'm completely wrong, and it's really the people who have me friended but don't comment who are considered lurkers.

In any case, I just have this feeling that in LJ, at least in fandom, that there are fewer lurkers/a lower percentage of lurkers.

Anyone else have thoughts on this? Anyone track non-LJ users or non-LJ friends who hit their LJ? Any figures?

Comments

[gillieweed.livejournal.com]

Stalkers? The people who check your userinfo every week? Or even more fun inexplicably, spend more time looking at your "joule" than you do?

[kakiphony.livejournal.com]

No figures, but I do know some lurkers. I consider J a lurker. He has an account, but he posts so rarely that I don't even think it's enough to be "occasionally." And I know that some of my friends and my sister read my journal regularly, but don't have lj accounts. They're the classic lurkers. And I do know that *I* lurk on some local people's journals. I don't actually want to interact with them, but they're fascinating from a distance. :)

[greenpear.livejournal.com]

I lurk alot and comment seldomly. That's just my nature.

I do post (on occasion) in my own journal.

So where do I fit in?

[todayiamadaisy]

I bought a paid account recently and I've used my new poll-making ability twice, and both times I was surprised to get responses from two people I've never heard of. The same two people, both times. I checked their LJs, and they seem to be real people with proper entries. So I've got lurkers! I don't quite know how - I'm not really active in any communities, I'm not an author with fics online - and yet there they are. So if I have, I'm sure you do too.

Someone on my f-list declared a Delurker Day last year, asking all the shy people reading to say hi. A very good idea, I think. :-)

(Having said all that, I read that quote about 90% of users being lurkers as mainly referring to people who friend but don't comment.)

[celisnebula.livejournal.com]

I know I have at least 10 people (that I know of) without livejournals who do read my livejournal and occasionally go off and read my friends list too. That isn't even counting the people on my blogger writting ring that have links to my LJ, or from the Rose and Thorn literary group who have the link, and access to my LJ too.

A couple of people, like my friend jacklemon, and dragonflyproph are friends of mine from MSN groups that I badgered talked into getting an LJ account.

*shrugs* I figure, if I wanted to keep things private, I'd use an old fashioned pen and paper journal.

[florence-craye.livejournal.com]

I think that defintion of lurkers is how I've interpreted it. I think of lurkers mainly as people who read but don't comment. Sometimes they friend you, but don't comment very often. I have a few journals where I lurk, so that's what I considered lurking. It's not sinister, but more shyness and sometimes there's nothing to say to many entries because someone else has already said it.

I love Delurking Day- it's nice to see that the lurkers can come out and feel more involved in the journal without people asking why they never post. It's warm and inviting.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Well, dahling, your "joule" is simply fascinating. Everyone knows that.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I'm still trying to sort out who would fit the definition of an LJ lurker...the people who have journals, but just don't post, or the people who don't have journals, and don't post. It is rather interesting.

And I know what you mean. I've met a few people in fandom who are quite interesting, but only on an occasional basis. ;)

[valis2.livejournal.com]

That's the problem with this entry, I think. I'm still undecided about the definition of "lurker" here.

Is it someone who has a journal, but rarely interacts, or someone without a journal who doesn't interact? Is anyone without a journal really wandering around LJ, looking at random LJers?

[valis2.livejournal.com]

I read a little farther into the article, and the author says that for blogs, there's an even bigger discrepancy:

Blogs have even worse participation inequality than is evident in the 90-9-1 rule that characterizes most online communities. With blogs, the rule is more like 95-5-0.1.

I'm really astonished, honestly. I guess I'm just a big ham, and I want to talk to everyone. My lurking days were very short, honestly.

I just can't imagine that there are huge flocks of journal-less people roaming around LJ for days, reading random entries.

Then again, we come back to the troublesome definition of lurker. I'm still mulling this over. If by "lurker" the author means "people who have journals but don't post," then the natural extension of this is that only about 20 of the 200 people I watch should be active. But many more are active. And of the 180, there are many who have abandoned their journals, or taken a hiatus; are they really "lurkers"? I don't think so.

Or maybe I have friended people in the 0.1% section, who are relatively active. By default, they cannot be lurkers without journals, so that must be what's causing the short-circuit in my brain.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

I think I have a very stubborn definition of lurk in my head. For me, lurking means reading material without commenting or participating, so I immediately think of lurkers on LJ as people without their own journals who wander about.

See, I have a journal, and I would never consider reading my flist to be "lurking", even if I don't comment on several entries.

I think it's the odd social nature of LJ that is tripping me up on this question.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Wow, really? That many people? That's really interesting. Are they friends and family? Have they told you in RL that they're reading your journal, or do they comment once in a blue moon?

[mingbutterfly.livejournal.com]

I don't think LJ fits the 90/9/1 rule, because you must buy in to participate. You at least should have a journal to use LJ, as it's inconvenient to read your friends' posts otherwise. It's probably more like 5/85/10... At most, 5% of true lurkers without journals reading but not responding, a large proportion of people who are there sometimes, and 10% who post and comment a lot.

The 90/9/1 probably applies more to a large community or icon journal inside LJ, not LJ as a whole. Such a community (like a traditional website) is a top-down form of communication that encourages lurking, while LJ is more peer-to-peer.

Also, LJ is really complicated... I don't post to my journal very much, but still don't consider myself a lurker, as I am frequently making comments and mod a community. Someone's definition of "lurker" would depend on what sort of participation they value. But on LJ it's really, really hard to contribute nothing and have it make any sense to you, which is why I suggested the numbers are probably a bit different.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

The 90/9/1 probably applies more to a large community or icon journal inside LJ, not LJ as a whole.

Aha! Yet another layer of complication. I think you're absolutely right. Comms do not seem to have high levels of interaction as compared to personal journals.

I think that the very unusual nature of LJ (even among other blogging software) is what is making this more complicated. The very nature of commenting to comments makes it fairly unique, and I think that the author of the article would have to do a study just on LJ to get accurate figures, because it doesn't quite fit the traditional "blog" stereotype.

[jen-deben.livejournal.com]

I would certainly consider those who friend-and-read but don't comment to be lurkers.

The nature of LJ probably means that there are not very many non-friending drive-by lurkers around. LJ is just too big, and I've tried to drive-by lurk before; it's dull. Most people's LJs are only interesting if you have SOME kind of connection to them. Reading about the toaster not working this morning is only interesting if you care about the person's life to some degree.

As for the size of LJ, when I find someone interesting, I friend them, so that I can find them again. Friending is the equivalent of bookmarking, and since LJ provides the service, I use it. There are people I read and don't comment on, and I do consider myself to be a lurker to them. However, they "know" I'm there, in the sense that they know I've friended them, if they care to go check. I think LJ has plenty of lurkers; it just encourages them - via the friending feature - to not be completely anonymous.

Also, keeping a personal LJ isn't necessarily a form of participation, as the LJer is not participating until someone friends them and the LJer starts interacting with with that person. Until that point, their LJ is just a personal (if public) diary.

I've friended people, started commenting on their journals with some regularity, only to find that they don't-or-won't talk to me. Usually, I will eventually lose interest and defriend them. To me, that person is not participating. I'm not establishing a connection with them, and that makes any toaster-malfunction stories they might post completely uninteresting to me. They still might be a cool and interesting person, but they have to be muchmuchmuch more interesting than the average person who DOES talk to me for me to remain engaged in reading about their life.

[mingbutterfly.livejournal.com]

~The very nature of commenting to comments makes it fairly unique~

Yep, that's a great point! (And here I am bearing out your theory by replying to your comment.)

LJ is egalitarian. There aren't bloggers and commenters, just lots of bloggers writing to each other.

[vanityfair00.livejournal.com]

I notice that too whenever I post a poll, especially those I don't advertise or pimp, just put out there, the number of people I've never heard of who respond. It makes me wonder how many other people without accounts are reading.

I like the idea of Delurker Day...may have to try that. :-)

[greenpear.livejournal.com]

Lurker always meant someone who you didn't know was there. But that would be true whether someone had an account or not. THe only way to stop lurkers is to friends lock and personally, I don't want to do that. I like it that people can float in and drop me a line.

[scatteredlogic.livejournal.com]

I have a couple of anonymous people who read my LJ, because they comment from time to time so I know they're there. As for people who read it anonymously and don't comment? I have no idea about those.

There are a lot of people who've friended me who rarely comment, but I can be just as guilty of that. If I don't feel I have anything more to contribute to the conversation than, "Yeah, me too," then I don't usually add anything even though I'm reading. Perhaps those people consider me a lurker. ;)

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Most people's LJs are only interesting if you have SOME kind of connection to them. Reading about the toaster not working this morning is only interesting if you care about the person's life to some degree.

Very, very true. Which is why my original interpretation of lurker as non-journal entity was so head-scratching.

I think LJ has plenty of lurkers; it just encourages them - via the friending feature - to not be completely anonymous.

Aha! That is a great thought. I think that part of this is the fact that, for me, the feeling of "lurker" is banished when you know someone is reading your journal because they've friended you. I have always thought that "lurker" implied being anonymous.

But then we move to comms, and that's where I think that article applies most.

I've friended people, started commenting on their journals with some regularity, only to find that they don't-or-won't talk to me. Usually, I will eventually lose interest and defriend them. To me, that person is not participating. I'm not establishing a connection

Yes, for me it's all about the conversations. Vox has left me cold, due to it's blog nature, where you can't easily comment to other comments. If I couldn't have actual dialogues, I think I would not have held interest for long. I enjoy the give and take of LJ, and the personal connections.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

If I don't feel I have anything more to contribute to the conversation than, "Yeah, me too," then I don't usually add anything even though I'm reading.

Lately I've been going through this weird phase where I'm getting self-conscious about my comments...I keep thinking, I've just said absolutely nothing, maybe I shouldn't have bothered. But I just have so many people on the flist now, that my comments are a bit simplified because I just don't have time to get into more complex issues, excepting my own LJ, of course.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

For me, lurker has always meant someone you don't know is there, who is reading something semi-regularly.

When someone friends you, however, you know (or at least suspect, ha) that they're reading you. So that only fulfills part of my definition, hence my confusion.

I'm not trying to stop lurkers; I don't have a single flocked entry. In fact, my sister often reads, as does a friend of mine. I'm just trying to get a handle on how many strangers might be stopping by, people without journals.

[celisnebula.livejournal.com]

Well with my Mom, I didn't know she was reading my livejournal until she said she made an LJ account (the other day) so she could reply to me. My email has this web address in the signatures so, literally anyone who is nosy can come and poke around in my livejournal. I know about 3 of the people who read me personally, the rest are just fly by night people who occasionally comment.

[ms-hecubus.livejournal.com]

I know that there are two non-LJ friends who read my LJ. There were 3, but one got an LJ just to read my "friends only" posts.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

I know of two non-LJ people who read my LJ, but I always wonder if there are others.

I've heard of "lurker polls" before, where you ask people to click on a ticky box if they're looking at your journal.

[ms-hecubus.livejournal.com]

That's an idea, but I'm not sure that I really want to know. I can't imagine why anyone a) outside of LJ or b)not personally aquainted with me would want to read. I just don't think of my life as that fascinating.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Same here. I never would have even thought of it, except that article made me wonder for a moment.

[ziasudra-fic.livejournal.com]

I've put a traffic counter thingie in a few of my fic posts and I'm always amazed at how many people found their ways to my journal from all over the world -- and are happily lurking even if they're returning visitors.

I know for sure quite a few people lurk in my RL journal. I've had at least three friends from high school and college find me by Googling my (full) name, and then following the results to ziasudra. Not to mention my family is notorious for lurking -- except that they tell me about it ^_^;;

It's hard to tell whether I have fewer lurkers in my fandom journal or my RL journal, since by definition lurkers are people that I don't know are reading my journals. I do know my posts have been randomly culled via RSS or whatever means, and I've seen my fics recced in different languages... so lurkers are definitely out there.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

It is interesting to see how many people you end up contacting, either directly or indirectly, through LJ. Some people end up writing a bit of meta that lands them in the center of controversy; some people write fantastic fics that bring them readers from everywhere...the patterns of popularity/hits are really strange, and I'm sure they're subject to all sorts of outside influences, like weather and time of day and season.

When I first started my LJ, I would bookmark other LJs and then check them daily. I had no idea about the fpage! So I wonder, sometimes, if some people still read their journals in this manner, and if they just don't bother friending the person. If they never comment, you'll never know that they're lurking, which is, I suppose, the point of lurking. Heh.

[ziasudra-fic.livejournal.com]

I have a few LJs bookmarked that I visit from time to time. Mostly I do that for journals I want to keep an eye out on for the Daily Snitch but for whatever reason don't feel compelled to friend them. So if I bookmark random journals, I'm sure there are others who do that to mine too.

[bell-witch.livejournal.com]

I think this is where having so very few people who read my journal comes in handy. I have very small numbers who read it and if I only posted fic there I can practically guarantee one maybe two comments. But my journal isn't like yours--you have more readers than I do--and certainly nowhere near as visited as a lot of the people I've managed to put on my f-list. Hundreds of readers/watchers.

I pay so little attention. Looked at my RP journal stats once, if that's what you're talking about. I don't track stuff and I've a rare, rare number of things locked. Those are private RPs and not for this journal anyway.

Lurking is hard to define--if you go once to someone's journal and don't comment I couldn't call that lurking. But if you friend them, then that's not lurking either. Me, if there's someone whose journal I want to see, I friend them and most often say "Your journal's cool and I'm friending you if that's okay". Have already friended and have never been asked to unfriend. Personal opinion and stuff.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Lurking is a bit complicated in a system like LJ. It's hard to narrow down a precise definition for it, and I have a feeling that the definition changes from LJer to LJer. For me, if you've friended someone and read their journal on a regular basis, it can't possibly be lurking, because they know you're reading their journal, which knocks out the part of the definition dealing with "unknown". I'm still trying to decide how this all fits in.