One of the wonderings that arose for me this week came from Dr. Dennen's topic in our weekly discussion on communities and networks - how would you define and differentiate them. In my thinking of what a community was, I thought about the role of the person partaking in a community, etc. That led me to think about the role of a lurker in online communities. I have considered myself a lurker for the past couple of years to remain private, but also because I sometimes don't have the confidence to post or engage in conversations. However, I consider myself a part of "online communities" where I am just absorbing the knowledge shared by others. So I wonder...can lurkers be considered part of the community? Probably not, depending on the expectations set by a specific online community. Anyways, I was reminded of an article I skimmed some time ago about the negative consequences that lurking may have. I am trying to remember the article, but it was similar to this article ...
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