Modeling the Behavior of Lurkers in Online Communities Using Intentional Agents

Lurkers are members of an online community who read but seldom or never post messages. It has been reported that most members of online communities are lurkers. Understanding the reasons of lurking and the strategies of delurking can help the healthy development of online communities, which can potentially promote Internet commerce. This paper applies goal-oriented modeling on the behaviors of lurkers using the i* intentional modeling framework.