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- Approved-By: Diane Kovacs <DKOVACS@KENTVM.KENT.EDU>
- Message-ID: <LIBREF-L%92111013441240@KENTVM.KENT.EDU>
- Newsgroups: bit.listserv.libref-l
- Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 13:36:54 EDT
- Sender: 'Discussion of Library Reference Issues' <LIBREF-L@KENTVM.BITNET>
- From: "Michael S. Hart" <HART%vmd.cso.uiuc.edu@Kentvm.Kent.edu>
- Subject: Re: Last Comments on Lurkers
- Comments: To: libref-l@kentvm.kent.edu
- In-Reply-To: Message of Tue,
- 10 Nov 1992 01:54:03 EDT from
- <SPOBER%MANVAX.BITNET%Kentvm.Kent.edu@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu>
- Lines: 51
-
- ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
- On Tue, 10 Nov 1992 01:54:03 EDT <SPOBER%MANVAX.BITNET%Kentvm.Kent.edu@MIZZOU1.m
- >----------------------------Original message----------------------------
- >Oh come now. You really think that "wallflower" is less negative
- >than "lurker"? Here's the relevant definition from one dictionary:
- >
- Lurker definitely has a more negative connotation in most parts of
- the world.
-
- > "A person, expecially a woman, who does not participate
- > in the activity at a social event because of shyness or
- > unpopularity."
- >
- >At least "lurker" implies that the people labelled as such are
- >not participating from their own choice, not because they are
- >being shunned by the active list participants!
-
- The term "OR" in the above definition mean that shyness is a
- single acceptable cause of being a wallflower, which is what
- the lurkers I have interviewed have led me to believe.
-
- Also, in checking Merriam-Webster from 1949 to 1983 I did not
- find any definition as sexist as the one quoted above.
- >
- >Stacy Pober spober@manvax.bitnet
- >Manhattan College Libraries spober@manvax.cc.mancol.edu
-
- However, all semantic, political and other misleading reasons aside. . .
-
- the networks should belong to everyone.
-
-
- Right now only 1% of the population is on the networks. . .
- and only about 1% of the people subscribed to most listservers
- are writing 50%-70% of the notes for those lists. . .
-
- such a vastly small minority should not be imposing such a great
- amount of peer- and non-peer group pressure.
-
-
- You might notice that these connotative discussion take over the
- discussion when people are unwilling to discuss the substantive issues.
- =====================================================
-
- Thank you for your interest,
-
- Michael S. Hart, Professor of Electronic Text
- Executive Director of Project Gutenberg Etext
- Illinois Benedictine College, Lisle, IL 60532
- No official connection to U of Illinois--UIUC
- hart @uiucvmd.bitnet or hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu
-