Editing Lurker (section)

===Lurking to participation===
Some researchers have discovered positive links between [[social capital]], [[cultural capital]], and de-lurking.<ref name=rafaeli04 /><ref name=Soroka06 /> Others have identified psychological approaches to overcome the barriers to online participation.<ref name="preece04">{{cite journal |vauthors=Preece J, Nonnecke B, Andrews D | title = The top five reasons for lurking: improving community experiences for everyone| year = 2004| journal = Computers in Human Behavior| volume = 20| issue = 2| pages = 201–223| doi=10.1016/j.chb.2003.10.015| s2cid = 26877425}}</ref>

According to Rafaeli et al., "...community virtual social capital is 'a collection of features of the social network created as a result of virtual community activities that lead to development of common social norms and rules that assist cooperation for mutual benefit'" (p.&nbsp;4).<ref name=rafaeli04 /> Through analyzing [[e-learning]] forums, Rafaeli et al. found a positive association between amounts of de-lurking and social capital. Soroka and Rafaeli claim that "virtual cultural capital" is "...an extent to which a person has a reading-based knowledge about a virtual community's culture and other participants, thus having much in common with them."<ref name=Soroka06 /> By analyzing the [[Open University of Israel]] online forums and two IBM [[Reach out (non-profit)|ReachOut]] online communities, Soroka and Rafaeli found that as users' cultural capital of an online community increases, their amount of activity increases, and they have a higher likelihood of de-lurking. Soroka and Rafaeli also found that irrespective of the amount of cultural capital,  de-lurking becomes less likely as time passes.

The design and management of online communities can also affect de-lurking and participation.<ref name=Rashid06>{{cite conference|author=Rashid, A.M. |author2=Ling, K. |author3=Tassone, R.D. |author4=Resnick, P. |author5=Kraut, R. |author6=Riedl, J. |date=April 2006|title=Motivating Participation by Displaying the Value of Contribution.|conference=CHI 2006}}</ref><ref name=Resnick10>{{cite journal|last1=Resnick|first1=P.J.|last2=Janney|first2=A.W.|last3=Buis|first3=L.R.|last4=Richardson|first4=C.R.|year=2010|title=Adding an Online Community to an Internet-Mediated Walking Program. Part 2: Strategies for Encouraging Community Participation|journal=Journal of Medical Internet Research|volume=12|issue=4|doi=10.2196/jmir.1339|pages=e72|pmid=21169161|pmc=3056535 |doi-access=free }}</ref> Resnick, Janney, Buis, and Richardson introduced a community element to the online walking program called Stepping Up to Health and discussed various issues of beginning an online community, including transforming lurkers into users.<ref name=Resnick10 /> They discovered that posting contests (i.e., where users who made their first posts during a five-day period qualified to potentially win a prize) were a helpful mechanism to promote posting among lurkers. Similarly, Antin and Cheshire's survey of lurkers suggests that reading behavior in Wikipedia is a sort of participation which helps new users to learn about the online community and advance toward more comprehensive participation.<ref name=antin10>{{cite conference | year = 2010 |author=Antin, J. |author2=Cheshire, C. | conference = ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work | pages = 127–130 | title = Readers are not free-riders: Reading as a form of participation on Wikipedia}}</ref>

While Rashid et al. did not examine lurkers directly, they conducted an experimental study on [[MovieLens]] that investigated how to raise low contribution rates in online communities.<ref name=Rashid06 /> They discovered that participants showed a higher likelihood of rating movies when ratings were valuable to someone than when ratings were associated with the probability of having previously watched a movie. Furthermore, they found that participants showed an enhanced likelihood of rating movies when ratings were valuable to MovieLens subgroups than when ratings were valuable to the entire MovieLens online community, and participants demonstrated an enhanced likelihood of rating movies when ratings were valuable to individuals who liked similar movie genres as the participant than when ratings were valuable to individuals who liked dissimilar movie genres as the participant. These authors also found that participants demonstrated a reduced likelihood of rating movies when ratings were valuable to oneself than when ratings were valuable to someone else. Given these findings, Rashid et al. claim, "…designers can use information about the beneficiaries of contributions to create subtle and integrated messages to increase motivation"(p.&nbsp;958).<ref name=Rashid06 />