The Lurker Thing

[Dicentra spectabilis]

--- In HPFGU-Feedback at yahoogroups.com, "Saitaina" <saitaina at w...> wrote:

> Danielle wrote:
> 
> <Do lurkers affect the list administration in
> any demonstrable way? I
> only get Admin messages in my mailbox, and
> these are rare.>
> 
> I see no way that lurkers affect the list
> administration, nor the list in any way
> beyond our first Welcoming Message.

I think lurkers are wonderful, myself.  They cause the Elves much
*less* trouble than the posters, in fact, because they never post
anything inappropriate that needs to be Howlered or rejected.

Like Saitana said, we send a Welcoming message to all new members, but
beyond that, we don't fuss with people unless they post incorrectly.
Having a ton of people on the membership list doesn't seem to slow
things down at all.  (My inner fussbudget wants to clean out all those
who don't want to lurk *or* participate anymore so that we can get an
accurate idea of how many people are *really* on the list, but because
the extra folks aren't a problem, there's really no reason to do so.) 

Don't feel guilty if you're a lurker.  Lurking is perfectly OK. 
Lurking is *encouraged*.  Not everyone likes to post their ideas, nor
should they have to.  I wish some of our *posters* would learn the
fine art of Just Lurking.  What if *JKR* lurked on HPfGU occasionally?
 We certainly wouldn't want to kick *her* off, would we?

Hats off to Lurkers, the body and soul of HPfGU!

--Dicentra