Say you could solicit a notable figure in technology, who would you want to lurk on this instance?

• Linus Torvalds: He is known for creating the open-source software projects Linux and Git. Linux is the operating system at the foundation of a large number of servers, phones (via Android), and other devices. Git is a version-control system used by many software developers worldwide.
• Kent Beck: Known for creating Extreme Programming, a software development methodology aiming to improve software quality and responsiveness to changing customer requirements. He also played a significant part in agile software development and has contributed to the creation of the JUnit testing framework.
• Dylan Beattie: A tech speaker, author, and developer who invented the humorous "Rockstar" programming language. He's also known for creating tools, skills, and processes to help businesses deliver quality software solutions.
• Ian Cooper: He's an experienced programmer and architect active in the .NET community. He's also known for his contributions to open source projects and his significant role in the London .NET User Group.
• Simon Brown: He's the creator of C4 software architecture model and the author of "Software Architecture for Developers". He's known for his work on software architecture and helping organizations visualize their software architecture.
• Martin Fowler: A prominent author and international speaker on software development. He's known for his work in object-oriented analysis and design, UML, patterns, and agile software development methodologies, including extreme programming.
• Daniel Terhorst-North: Known for originating the term and the methodologies behind BDD (Behavior Driven Development), an evolution of test-driven development.
• Sam Newman: He is recognized for his work in microservices, cloud, and continuous delivery. He's the author of "Building Microservices".
• Andy Hunt: He is one of the original authors of the seminal software development book, "The Pragmatic Programmer", and a co-founder of the Agile Alliance. He is also the author of the programming methodology known as DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself).

By "lurking" I understand: they would be here reading and voting but not engaging otherwise. In practice, is it any different than not being here at all?

If by "lurking" you mean that they would be here posting under pseudonyms and asking me if I would be able to identify them... Then it's a more interesting question. But I don't think I would be able to identify them from their style.

Duncan Coutts, Philip Wadler, Simon Peyton Jones, Edwin Brady, and John Wiegley are notable figures in technology mainly due to their significant contributions to programming languages, particularly functional languages.

1. Duncan Coutts: He is a well-known computer scientist mainly due to his work in the development of Haskell programming language. Duncan Coutts is one of the lead developers of the Glasgow Haskell Compiler (GHC) and played an important part in the development of the Cabal and Stack build tools for Haskell.
2. Philip Wadler: He is a prominent computer scientist known primarily for his work in programming language theory, and as a significant contributor to the development of the Haskell programming language. Wadler also contributed to the theory and implementation of functional programming languages and led the development of the XQuery and JSONiq query and processing languages for XML and JSON.
3. Simon Peyton Jones: He is a British computer scientist who has made substantial contributions to the field of functional programming languages, particularly the Haskell programming language. His work in the development of the Glasgow Haskell Compiler has been integral for the Haskell community. He is also well-known for his research into type systems and type inference.
4. Edwin Brady: He is best known for his work on the Idris programming language, a general-purpose functional programming language with dependent types. Brady's work on Idris has made an impact on the fields of software verification and type-driven development.
5. John Wiegley: He is a significant contributor to the development of the Emacs and Haskell communities. He served as the maintainer of GNU Emacs from 2015 to 2017. He created several popular Emacs packages and also carried out notable work on various Haskell projects such as the development of hledger.

These individuals are respected for their contributions to the field of computer science, particularly due to their work on the conceptualization, development, and advancement of important programming languages and tools.