In Internet culture, a lurker is typically a member of an online community or PLN who observes, but does not actively participate.
Lurking is just one form of free-riding that can happen within an internet community, and is similar to asking questions without responding or gathering information without distributing it.
Lurking is seen as undesirable to communities because of the risk free-riding can have on the community if every member does it.
A public good is something that is impossible to exclude someone from and has a joint supply within the community.
An internet community is seen as a public good because it is a pool of data to which people may, if they choose, separately contribute information.
The survival of the community is then dependent on the contributions of the members.
Since it is impossible to exclude members from sharing in the benefit of the public good, people are more motivated to free-ride on the work of the other members and not contribute themselves.
As a group grows in size, the likelihood of free-riding increases.
Individuals are less likely to contribute if they do not view their contribution as making a visible difference and if they expect the other members to provide enough content to reach the desired effect.
A lurker may withhold information because when they contribute, it benefits everyone in the community except for themselves.
When everyone then chooses to withhold information, the collective benefit is no longer produced.
With more people free-riding, it is more difficult to produce useful information and interactions among the group members.
The group will then not have enough resources to attract new members and retain current members.
Lurking can also cost site holders money if they do not use advertising to generate revenue.
The bandwidth costs of lurkers visiting a site may outstrip the value that donors or contributors provide to a community.
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lurker
) unable, or unwilling to put some effort into documenting about what they do?
mates I have in vk3, vk4 & vk5 each day. The Forum is a wealth of knowledge. Setting up AirScout would still be happening for me, only for the posts on the forum from those who knew nitty gritty. Adam is the 'Master', he has actually got me & u guys posting on the Forum at last. Now, lets look for something more technical to post about. Might grab my cam & take some pics of my 23cm gear developments.