Participation/community network

1. In the McDonald article, they make the case that lurking is, depending on the context, a legitimate participatory activity within an online community if practice. I'm not sure I agree with this fully, though I guess it depends upon what we deem a lurker. Sure, they can learn plenty of stuff, I won't argue that, and from the Lee article I also won't argue that lurkers can still "participate" in the learning. McDonald seems to want to classify lurkers as people who don't participate in a particular discussion but perhaps do in others or who participate in back channel communication. I can buy that ... I obviously don't participate in every online discussion I read. However, if someone NEVER participates online, how can they be a part of an online community of practice? Is it different in real life? Does "showing up" count as participation in a physical CoP? The line I draw between the two is that participation can be singular, but for me, a CoP requires give-and-take beyond a single person.

2. I found the "day without facebook" reading amusing. The railing against feeds is an interesting argument, but obviously a failure as well as feeds are obviously still around. Do these kind of 'net boycots or petitions ever actually work? Does the presence of feeds really hurt privacy when we are talking about the fact that they share information consciously given by the user to people consciously accepted as friends? If employers, police, or anyone else wants to use that information to pass judgement, are the information users at fault or those who post the information in the first place? I see facebook like any online community ... whatever you say, post, or share will somehow always be available so it is best to be a little forward thinking AND/OR make your information as private as possible.