Members and Staff Lurkers

[Shawn Gossman]

Are lurkers the backbone of the forum community?

How many lurkers does your forum have? How many active and posting members do you have? Are there more lurkers than posting members?

If you care about the member amount metric, if all your lurkers were unregistered all of a sudden, would you have significantly less members?

Lurkers are the backbone!

 

[Heatman]

When a forum have constant lurkers, it means there's very important and informative they are coming back to check on over and over again. If they all of a sudden stop, it means your forum have lost its touch and that's a bad sign.

Don't get me wrong, some lurkers are your competitors who wants to keep tab on what you've been up to.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

Don't get me wrong, some lurkers are your competitors who wants to keep tab on what you've been up to.

I would actually take that as a compliment. If they kept coming back, that means you're doing well. If they quit coming back, that must mean they don't feel threatened by you.

 

[Wayne]

I don’t consider all of the quiet members to be lurkers. To me, engaged observers better describes a lot of them. We have several members who may not post frequently, but they are deeply embedded in the “vibe,” so to speak. I even promoted one of these to a mod as she's especially tactful and good at diffusing nonsense.

1: They are fully tuned in, read every word, follow every debate, and stay completely up-to-date with the community's pulse. We can see them logging in regularly (that's the key part), so they’re not absent.

2: When they finally contribute, it's not a "me too" post. They wait until they have something of substance to add and when they do speak, the rest of the community really listens.

All that being said, members that never post -- frankly, I don't value them. But then again I don't worry about numbers like I used to.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

I agree with you @Wayne

I think a lot of lurkers end up creating some of the best posts on the forum. It's the ones who join and start posting fast who are usually leaving generic topics and replies so you see their signature links.

 

[Cpvr]

Are lurkers the backbone of the forum community?

How many lurkers does your forum have? How many active and posting members do you have? Are there more lurkers than posting members?

If you care about the member amount metric, if all your lurkers were unregistered all of a sudden, would you have significantly less members?

Lurkers are the backbone!

I'ma firm believer that lurkers lurk until the get the feel of a community, and join when they're ready.

They are essentially the backbone of the community. They are silent community members, and they are essentially members as well. They also, more than likely spread a forum's content without us noticing, but we appreciate it.

You can generally see when lurkers become members when they introduce themselves and they explain that they've been lurking for a while. That is a great thing.

I value them, and value them more once them start posting as well. They are a member of the community to me as well. Especially when they're actively contributing in other ways.

It is also a gap, but it's a small gap in the user metrics.