Discussion: Lurking

I'm just wondering how many people are 'Lurking' in the background of attackpoint -absorbing all the useful info and training logs, while not contributing to the 'community'?

Do you know of anyone?

I guess that those that contribute probably don't care? Me: I don't care.

Haha, I know that my dad is a 'lurker' - he reads my log, and a bunch of other logs, but has never gotten a user account.

Have lots of friends who are "lurking" - trying to convert them :) managed three already!

there are a few in DVOA. finally got my dad to get an acount and then he got hurt so he hasn't been doing anything.

I was a lurker for years before finally joining AP. I kept thinking that the old O-net would be resuscitated. But since your overall AP "ranking" is determined, in part, by your seniority, I wish I'd registered many years earlier

My reluctance was my suspicion that by registering I was opening the floodgates to all kinds of spam. Well, the spam has certainly increased exponentially, but I'm not sure my AP membership is the reason...

I'm a lurker.

Oh, you meant on attackpoint. Never mind.

Lurking sounds so despicable, I will only admit to being a rather passive reader but recently I find myself returning nearly every week. I must also admit that I once assigned a small group of sports science students here in Jyväskylä to have a look at AP, or lurk in mass...hope that is ok? I am out of it when it comes to the social etiquette in such contexts. Is there any? Did write a few times although I felt uncertain doing so since I really have no personal contacts to people on the site (accept running into Ben Legg once). Occassionally I also peruse two particular popular training logs with the same pleasure I used to get from reading The Far Side. As an American, I also get asked quite often what the translations for terrain features are in English from Finnish. Embarrassingly I learned these features in Finnish first when I started orienteering a few years ago. For example, I never used the words "spur" and "saddle" before except in the horsey sense. Thanks to AP though I am now up to speed on the jargon...although some of the best lingo hasn't proved to be terribly useful yet..."little up little down" and so on. Honestly if someone had just described it to me, without reading AP myself, I wouldn't have imagined it was so interesting since I could care less how many hours a so-and-so who I don't even know trained on the other side of the world. Thanks for keeping it an open site and thanks a bunch to whoever developed this thing!

I would not worry about 'lurkers' as long as amount of 'lurking' does not bring down Web-server AP is running on. If someone is 'lurking' then that someone has some kind of interest in orienteering.

I basically lurk. Here are my Lurking stats:

Visit attackpoint - almost every day
browse logs - same
Post - rarely
Training log activity - Spotty at best.

JJ has suggested that If I start commenting on other logs, then other will come looking for my training log. This will inspire me to log more often. A cycle will start and I will become an active member of the page. Good idea.
Now, back to some serious lurking!!

I believe that there is a statistically significant relationship between the quantity of my quality training and my perception of the number of people who might actually care. The cycle is real. Believe™.

I lurked for probably about a year before getting an account. I think that if I felt I was intruding on an exclusive community, I may have gone elsewhere. I think lurking is fine and should alomst be encouraged since it is a logical first step. Try it before you buy it.

Did I say buy it? Time to find the 'donate' link.....

The AP cycle is real. Believe™. - Cristina

Here's the 'Donate' link. Well worth it.

It's no accident that essentially all of the content on AP is available to view without registration. Browsing is the best way to see how the site works and get an idea if anything beyond just reading would be useful to you. Please don't feel that you are expected to join/post/log. Those of us already hooked are mostly doing it for our own benefit anyway.

grant bluett is a text book lurker. troy de haas has is also dangerously close.

ooo shep now you've started some nameing...

Well I have been mostly lurking as of late because I haven't done much in the way of training. I find it difficult to stick to any kind of schedule without extrinsic motivation. I like to read what other people are doing and maybe I will finally get moving again once there is some daylight left in the evenings.

training with head lamp at night is fun

My experience with hosting other newgroups/discussion boards is that lurkers generally outnumber participants by a sizeable margin. I had one board that would get nearly a thousand hits a day, but only fifty or sixty people posted regularly (this was back before search/spam bots constituted much net traffic).

I've never been able to lurk for long without chiming in. This is in rather stark contrast to my real-life persona where I can attend a party for several hours and not say a word.

Gosh Eric, you must have mellowed since you lived here. I don't recall you ever being at a loss for words... :-)

For years, I didn't see any need to "waste my time" on a training/discussion site, thinking that time spent on the internet was time that could have been spent outdoors or doing other things. I only visited AP when something came through my email (often USOF board net or USOF club net) that inspired a visit, eg a particular article about a particular issue. But, since I've started regularly logging training and reading other people's logs, I've found it highly motivational. I've definitely increased, probably more than doubled, both the quantity and quality of my training since starting to reqularly post on AP.

I'm a huge lurker, but I also chew up server space by posting my own strange little training regimes (athletic on their own scale) AND occasional comments...hmmm, but I DID buy an Attackpoint shirt which I will wear at meets while sitting in my Orienteering Chair with my Orienteering Dog while my Orienteering Husband runs about in the bushes.
Ken, if you make a shirt that has the "I'm logging this" on the front (so people can see it while I'm in The Chair), I'll buy that one too....

My mom's a lurker, because I'm a bad daughter and I don't email her enough. When she complained for the fifth or so time that I wasn't keeping in touch, I told her she could always read what we're up to on AP. That's probably when I started writing more about life stuff and not just training.
She had to get a user name when Nadim & I fell off the popular logs list and she had trouble finding us on the list. I told her how to add us as favorites.

I lurk at work, where I can't log on.

Sometimes I'm afraid that my mom is a lurker.

Mitch - you're confusing my behavior around people I know with my behavior around strangers. I've got no problem being obnoxious around people who already know I'm a jerk!

I wonder which logs riku is referring to when he says:

"Occassionally I also peruse two particular popular training logs with the same pleasure I used to get from reading The Far Side."

The Far Side - definitely Swampfox, and I would venture to guess PG for the second, although there are several others of you out there whose logs could fit this description also.

I only lurk when in the dicussion groups. This is only post 6 in the last year. Splits and training log are a different story.

What Tim said. This is only my 10th post in the last 12 months. But I lurk on the discussion group several times a day, usually.

I post a lot on our local BAOC board but don't feel like I have much to contribute here, in terms of either knowledge, or comic relief.

A couple of years ago I started posting my training, but suffered a back injury shortly thereafter, which put me on the shelf for several months. After that I was healthy for about a year, but last October suffered some lower abdominal muscle problems which I am only now starting to really recover from. Is AP bad for your health? :-)

Yep, those are the two I meant. The Far Side is more Swampfox-ish and a better analogy could be found for PG a cartoon more ironic and grumpy. The scary thing is I have a real picture in my head of these two which is completely fictional. I'm not sure I would want to meet the real people, it might spoil everything. Actually I think I may have seen PG waiting in line at the toilets during Jukola last year...he was small, bearded, wearing mutltiple layers and looking a little grumpy. I kept my distance.

As far as we all know, PGs don't bite in the wild.

Great what peer pressure can do -this thread was aimed at a mate of mine in sheffield -he's taken the hint and come out of the closet.

That's pissweak, we've been hammering Frogga for about a year to put training up and he has never cracked - that's discipline!