Talk:Lurker

This article was nominated for deletion recently. The result of the discussion was keep.

Jerry lavoie 20:08, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Christian Atkinson?

The article states: "For example Christian Atkinson (Jake from holloaks) is a Lurker." As far as I can tell, this is an incredibly esoteric reference, if not blatant vandalism. Is there any reason why it should stay in this article? 4.19.111.130 19:51, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Of course not. Yet, you expect anything to be truthful on here? Lol. Wikipedia has gone to sh1t.76.180.55.81 (talk) 05:08, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Edit

Changes

"end of sentence." >>> "end of sentence". (It looks better. Is WP brittish or american? I think it should be the language of accessable, and I say as one that mostly communicates with americans even, that I find the american way harder to read, and as mentioned in the jargon file, that it's more logical - and even required, for logical writing)
added sections
"emphasized word" >>> emphasized word (because again, having a lot of quotes makes it harder to read, and bolding obviously emphasizes)
removed dual BBS link
added 3 buts to 1st sentence (Which sounds stupid, sorry. And this is my first ~~major~~ minor edit, so hey...)

--213.64.90.59 06:08, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Smart ass lurker?

The smart ass lurker section seems unencyclopedic to me. Thoughts? --lightspeedchick 02:12, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, even though it's a fact worth stating. The phrase "smart ass" just seems out of place. Prgrmr@wrk 16:38, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, why not change it to Obnoxious Lurkers? --65.190.103.147 05:47, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sources

The recent deletion nomination (by me) resulted in several sources being named that may be of help for this article. User:Uncle G came up with ISBN 0735713332, which describes "Lurker mode" in Macromedia Flash UI components, where a user watches but does not interact; and ISBN 1852335327 which has an entire chapter, "Silent Participants: Getting to know lurkers better" on pages 110–132, on Usenet lurkers. (quoted from that user) After that I found two more sources that at least mention the term: ISBN 0634010123 and ISBN 0764544209. —Kncyu38 (talk • contribs) 02:22, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Neologism?

Is this appropriately tagged a neologism? I have never heard of it, but I am not a lurker either. I have done a simple search according to my proposed rule for inclusion as a neologism, see search results, and the term falls between the rules to include or remove. Under the Computing definitions, especially this one, the term has been in use for a ten years.

Types of lukers

Some of the sections describing the different types of lurkers appear to be original research. Also, terms such as "Smart Ass Lurkers" and "Perverted Lurkers" sounds a bit unencyclopedic.

Yes, I added the Perverted Lurkers section. Now, I wonder if I should have put, "Sexually-Motivated Lurkers." That describes more the type of lurking as opposed to making a judgemental statement.

On Smart Ass Lurkers, maybe that should be changed to Obnoxious Lurkers or Trolling Lurkers. Or the section could be expanded a bit and retitled, Trolls As Lurkers.

The Starcraft Lurker is not relevant to the type of lurking described here. Maybe there needs to be a disambiguation page.--65.190.103.147 16:27, 24 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Copyright violation

"The Lurkers Support Me in E-mail" belongs to Jo Walton, and should not be used without her permission. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.225.217.252 (talk • contribs) 07:38, June 5, 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, Ms. TNH. Er... should be thanks ma'am? Contractions and all that? :-) --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 19:58, 8 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In Pop Culture

I'm not sure if the contributors know this, but "lurker" as a word did not originate on the internet. "Lurk", as a verb meaning to "sneak", is first recorded circa 1300 AD. Therefor, not every instance of "lurker" is a reference to internet culture. In particular "lurker" as used by Lovecraft and other fantasy/occult source materials has nothing to do with the lurkers discussed on this page. The only two that might be a reference to forum lurkers is the babylon 5 one and "200 Lurkers". But I'd like to see a reference for the babylon 5 one because it seems way more likely that the homeless were called lurkers simply because they lurked around in the bottom of the station than that they in some metatphoric way resembled internet lurkers.--24.151.184.192 (talk) 23:42, 29 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, there is proof. Joe Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5 actually posted to a message board that Babylon 5's "lurkers" are a direct reference to the internet forum/newsgroup "lurker." Reference: http://www.jmsnews.com/msg.aspx?id=1-8929&query=Lurker --Random Chaos, 16 April 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.179.107.238 (talk) 03:10, 17 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Greg is a fag?

What's that? vandalism there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.137.166.127 (talk) 05:39, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Also known as Cerys Ap Rees [?]

Is this correct? I can't find any reference to this string elsewhere. Could it be just someone's name like a friend of a vandal (or the name of a lurker in a newsgroup frequented by a vandalizer? I do find Cerys occurring as a first name and Rees occurring as a surname (and also people named Cerys Rees). 192.88.165.35 (talk) 13:44, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

proposed image

Hello, I did this image and I want to donate it to wikipedia: http://www.nerdgranny.com/saint-lurker-ora-pro-nobis.jpg it comes from the nerdgranny.com website. ceers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.2.36.76 (talk) 22:28, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Query about Word-origin???

The Internet concept of "lurker" has obvious affinities with the characters of "lurkers" on the 1990s television series "Babylon 5" which started in 1993 (just as the Internet was getting off the ground) and which was the very very first TV series ever in human history to have an unofficial fan-driven web-site (or any kind of web-site fan or official for that matter). Now, it seems to me very likely that the Internet usage of the term "lurker" derives from the Babylon 5 television series, but I don't know of any documentation to prove it. I think any research on this would be a good idea. Can't put it in the article on just a hunch, WP:OR and all that stuff (and if I say "probably" than I think I'm violating WP:WEASEL). But itwould be a good idea to try to investigate this.--WickerGuy (talk) 19:22, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]