Dealing with Chronic Lurkers

[ibaesha]

I wasn't sure if I should actually post this because it may come off as whining, but if it does, oh well. I agree with a lot of things that people have said in this thread (mith, Thok, and Yosarian off the top of my head). The problem is, this thread was made months ago and I've only seen the lurker problem become worse so it really did nothing to resolve it. I'm currently so discouraged by the amount of lurkers in past and current games that I'm considering a few things.

1. Limit my own games considerably in the future in hopes of having to deal with the lurker problem less. And being extremely picky about what games I sign up for based on the player list. If I see people on a list that I know to be chronic lurkers, I may just skip signing up so I don't have to deal with it.

2. Progressively taking a metagame stance to pressure and otherwise lynch lurkers in hopes that it'll do something to discourage the behavior. Unfortunately, the current stance of most people on the site is that lurking is allowable and not a good reason to vote for someone. Also, because of the general attitude towards lurkers, I think it'd just cause me more grief than it would do any good.

3. Quit MS all together when my current games are complete. This is rather sad, but my frustration over lurkers is such that I'm really beginning to not enjoy playing very much.

I'm curious as to how people feel about #2 because it seems to be the only option I have as a player if I want to continue playing. As a mod, I can do things to quash lurking in my own games, but to be honest it's more frustrating to me as a player than as a mod. Also, I agree that it's not really always the mod's responsibility to stop lurkers, it's up to the players. Players are the ones that can stop it by -doing- something about it, but I get the impression over and over that no one wants to actually do anything.