Editing Lurker (section)

===Benefits for others===

In their study on interactive mailing lists, Takahashi, Fujimoto, and Yamasaki demonstrated that "active lurkers", or individuals who spread content from an online group to individuals external to the online group, help spread beneficial information to surrounding communities.<ref name=takahashi03 >{{cite conference|author=Takahashi, M. |author2=Fujimoto, M. |author3=Yamasaki, N. |date=November 2003 |title=The active lurker: influence of an in-house online community on its outside environment.|conference=international ACM SIGGROUP conference on Supporting group work|pages=1–10}}</ref>

Lurkers can also develop stores of valuable knowledge as they lurk which may be helpful later should they decide to contribute. For example, users in open source software communities can quickly discover the answers to common problems, making them more likely to contribute answers later. If they have already had a question answered, they are even more likely to de-lurk and reciprocate. These behaviors form the backbone of open source technical support.<ref name=lakhani03>{{cite journal|title = How open source software works: Free user to user assistance | journal=Research Policy|year = 2003| volume = 32| issue=6|author=Lakhani, K. |author2=Von Hippel, E. | doi=10.1016/s0048-7333(02)00095-1| pages=923–943| hdl=1721.1/70028| hdl-access=free}}</ref>

Lurkers also help reduce the burden on communities. A person who may have a question for a community may be better served searching for the answer than forcing community members to expend effort to see and respond to their query. In the case of open source project communities, the vast majority of questions have already been asked and answered in the community, making any repeated questions wasted work.<ref name=lakhani03 />

Pragmatically, lurkers also provide revenue for communities as they access pages, generating advertising revenue.