On Tue, 25 Feb 2003, J C Lawrence wrote: > > and RSS and other technologies will only increase the size of the > > passive audience. I've gone back and forth over whether this is good > > or bad, and finally decided to not worry about it. > > Yeah, a point there that shouldn't ignored is that with rare exception a > large "leeching" audience is required to derive and support a smaller > contributing audience.
I'm not sure whether that follows, but I certainly think that in some contexts contributors are playing for the audience. Contributors -- instead of trying to persuade each other -- they are genuinely discussing thing in hope of persuading the audience. This can help sustain discussion, and and keep it more civil. Now I've had a couple lists discussion lists die due to lack of contribution (one survives only for announcements). But I don't blame the lurkers for that. It didn't matter that there were 500 lurkers instead of just 50. The problem was a lack of people willing to discuss things. A fifth reason for lurkers (which I believe affected one of my lists) is that people don't want to go on record for an informal discussion. In an academic community a lot of the people who will see your posting may later be evaluating you as a job candidate. If you unless you are confident that you shine in discussions, you may wish to stay out of them. -j -- Jeffrey Goldberg http://www.goldmark.org/jeff/ Relativism is the triumph of authority over truth, convention over justice Hate spam? Boycott MCI! http://www.goldmark.org/jeff/anti-spam/mci/
