Warnock's dilemma, named for its originator Bryan Warnock, is the problem of interpreting a lack of response to a posting in a
virtual community
A virtual community is a social network of individuals who connect through specific social media, potentially crossing geographical and political boundaries in order to pursue mutual interests or goals. Some of the most pervasive virtual commu ...
. The term originally referred to
mailing list discussions, but has been applied to
Usenet
Usenet (), a portmanteau of User's Network, is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose UUCP, Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Elli ...
posts,
blog
A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...
s,
web forums, and online content in general. The dilemma arises because a lack of response does not necessarily imply that no one is interested in the topic, but could also mean for example that readers find the content to be exceptionally good (leaving nothing for commenters to add).
On many internet forums, only around
one percent of users create new posts, while nine percent reply and 90 percent are
lurker
In Internet culture, a lurker is typically a member of an online community who observes, but does not participate by posting or commenting. The exact definition depends on context. Lurkers make up a large proportion of all users in online commu ...
s that do not contribute to the discussion.
[What is the 1% rule?](_blank)
by Charles Arthur, ''The Guardian'', 20 July 2006 When no users reply, the original poster has no way of knowing what lurkers think of their contribution.
Warnock's dilemma leads to online writers and publishers adopting more provocative writing strategies in order to ensure that they will get a response. However, this can also lead publishers to avoid producing the kind of content that might fail to generate comments due to its high quality. This problem arises particularly with sites that focus on
viral content, such as ''
BuzzFeed
BuzzFeed, Inc. is an American Internet mass media, media, news and entertainment company with a focus on digital media. Based in New York City, BuzzFeed was founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti and John Seward Johnson III, John S. Johnson III to ...
'' and ''
Huffington Post
''HuffPost'' (''The Huffington Post'' until 2017, itself often abbreviated as ''HPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and covers ...
''.
Original description
Since Warnock's original description of the dilemma in August 2000, the expression has become used in the
Perl
Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Though Perl is not officially an acronym, there are various backronyms in use, including "Practical Extraction and Reporting Language".
Perl was developed ...
world.
Re: Warnocked?
– Post to the Perl 6 language list explaining history and uptake of term
See also
* Comments section
The comments section is a feature on most online blogs, news websites, and other websites in which the publishers invite the audience to comment on the published content. This is a continuation of the older practice of publishing letters to the e ...
* Like button
A like button, like option, or recommend button is a feature in communication software such as social networking services, Internet forums, news websites and blogs where the user can express that they like or support certain content. Interne ...
Notes
Sources
* {{Cite book, chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7447kGFNSOgC&pg=PT88, title=Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator
, isbn=978-1101583715, chapter=Can't Stand the Silence
, first=Ryan , last=Holiday , author-link=Ryan Holiday, year=2012, pages=101–103, publisher=Penguin
External links
Warnock's later explanations
Internet culture
Dilemmas