Talking about why I rarely share knowledge

According to Kosonen (2009), "factors that seem to promote knowledge sharing include individual motivations, personal characteristics, technical attributes, and community-level social capital." I think the four factors make sense. Take myself for example. I rarely share knowledge online.
When taking my individual motivation into consideration, I am not so interested in sharing my knowledge in virtual community. I am a lurker most of time because I enjoy reading others' knowledge sharing. But if some members in a community have some misunderstanding of my field, or concepts as well as practice in my field, I would like to share expertise due to obligation (Kosonen ,2009, p. 155). Regarding the extrinsic motivation, it is not applicable for me. I would feel it is not right if I share knowledge in order to get money or praises. If I would share knowledge with others, I would be "fostered by enjoyment: satisfaction, learning, reciprocal help" (Kosonen ,2009, p. 148). When my classmates and friends need me to share knowledge, I would not hesitate to do it. I am totally OK with reciprocal help.

Regarding personal characteristics, I am relatively introvert. Most of time, I am not used to share my life and study with others. "In China, modesty requirements and a high degree of competitiveness (the need to ‘own’ knowledge) are serious barriers to knowledge sharing in VCoPs " (Kosonen ,2009, p. 147). I agree with the summary. I have been taught to be modest by teachers, parents, and the whole society. I have been told that "Do not be proud of yourself. Do not show that you know lots of things. As long as you do that, people would make judgement. You will be criticized as cocky. You do not want to be famous."  "To maintain your competitive advantages, you should not share your secrets or thoughts with others". Luckily, being exposed to western cultures, I have changed my mindset to a large extent. I have tried to share what I know with others, learn from others, and collaborate with others. Actually, this is a better way of learning, I believe.  However, I think I am not knowledgeable enough to pass knowledge to others. In other words, I have low self-efficacy. Also,the knowledge I obtained online with them. In other words, I used to underestimate the importance of curation of knowledge.

As with technical attributes, I would take usability into consideration. Preece (2000) measured usability in terms of support for social interaction (such as feedback and prompts), information design (understandability), ease of navigation and access (response time, downloading speed). I was once in a community based on Wiki. The response time and downloading speed really killed me.

Finally, regarding social capital, trust and prior knowledge about others would definitely affect how much I would love to share knowledge. I am afraid that others would make judgement about me. I am also afraid others would be more knowledgeable about those topics I want to share. As long as I trust all community members, I would love to share my personal experiences, opinions, and solutions. Take the course in Web 2.0 for example. Since I trust the teacher, teaching assistant, and classmates, I would not mind sharing what I have known.

In a nutshell, for me, the four factors affect my participation in sharing knowledge in an online community.

What about you? Are you an expressive person? Which factor affect you most? 

References

Kosonen, M. (2009). Knowledge sharing in virtual communities-a review of the empirical research. International Journal of Web Based Communities, 5(2), 144-163.
Preece, J. (2000) Online Communities. Designing Usability, Supporting Sociability, Chichester: Wiley.