I tend to start. I agree with Zenster; it does get people to know you better. To simplify that, I believe it gets people to recognize your name. After the last few threads I’ve started, I feel alot more comfortable to post threads on this board because of the amount of responses/views I recieved; since people have seen my name a few times, I feel that my input is a bit more significant. I suppose, in a few months, or when my post count hits 500-whichever comes first- I’ll reply a bit more. Though I am making more efforts to reply now; again, I’m a lot less shy than I was.
I still a new kid too. I’m still “getting to know everyone” and I’m kind of shy about posting at all. I’m still learning…and man, there’s a LOT to learn! 
Scotticher said:
It was Oat Willie! He channeled himself through me and posted that! Really, I did not have sex with that woman…er, I am not a crook…er, I didn’t say that. The flowers…er, somebody ran by and handed them to me–I dunno what it was all about. See? There are simple, credible explanations for everything.
(But thanks for your interest in the…ahem…back of my tee shirt, Scotti. :))
Bumbazine said:
That’s what some of us are afraid of…
Sorry about beating you to it, Cervaise. I thought about this one for quite a while, and when no one else posted the question, I finally went for it.
Well, teppei, maybe I’ll start more threads. I should definitely be more brave in that area.
I’ve started a little over two dozen threads since I came aboard. I love starting threads. Getting responses is a cheap and plentiful source of personal affirmation – “Yes, Snooooopy, the thread that you produced in your brain has touched me in some way, and I must respond. Thank you for being in my life, you deliriously intelligent sex beast!” is what I imagine people thinking to themselves when they respond, to be specific.
I just checked my statistics. I’ve been on this board for over 15 months now. I’ve had 688 posts on a total of 401 threads. I’ve started 8 threads in that time.
I’m somewhat disappointed with the quality of the responses to the threads I’ve started. Of the 8 threads I’ve started, 6 were questions to which I wanted something like an objective answer. Only 3 of those questions got answered to my satisfaction, and some of those answers were ones that I now think I could have come up with myself if I’d spent a little more time with a search engine. The other 3 got answers that really didn’t help me. In one case much of the response that I got was from people who knew less about the subject than I did, so all they were doing were throwing around vague nonsense that I knew was wrong. This was very discouraging to me. I would have expected that on the SDMB people at least had the decency not to pretend to knowledge that they didn’t have. The other two threads I started were a quiz that got a reasonable amount of response and a request for an opinion that got a lot of response.
Most of my posts have been simple answers to questions and corrections of small points in other posts. My few attempts to make jokes have fallen flat. They were either ignored or not responded to in the manner I’d hoped. In general, I wonder if I’m the least noticed longtime poster to this board. I’ve never been included on anyone’s list of favorite posters. The few mentions of me that weren’t in direct reponse to a post I’d made were from people who’d met me at local DopeFests. I wonder what it takes to get noticed around here. Should I be more obnoxious? Should I act totally insane?
I respond. I don’t think I’ve ever started a thread. I guess I’m the Doper equivalent to a boxing counterpuncher.
Yeah, Jessica, I have been meaning to bug you about that. Big sigs tend to take up a lot of space, and thus is why I tend to try to keep mine about 3-4 lines long at most and not use double-spacing. It gets annoying to have something take forever to load b/c of all the huge sig lines from the posters in it who say nearly nothing each post.
Back to the main topic…
I like starting threads, but I rarely have anything relevant to start a post about, which is why I had threads like… [list]
[li]get your random thought for the day from ssskuggiii[/li][li]some unbirthday party threads[/li][li]a premature post count party[/li][li]and (of course) a few threads just explaining things I needed to get out. Kinda mundane, but at least some of them were successful.[/li]
I thoroughly enjoy posting to other people’s threads than making my own b/c I don’t have to worry about it failing miserably.
I’m another counter-puncher. I’m pretty new, and still don’t feel like I know who’s who, the board’s in jokes, or how my posts will be received. Most of that is because during the day I’m reading the boards from work, and can’t really pay all that much attention. (Plus I can’t post from work. Damn proxy servers.) It’s kind of like being in a crowded room with a bunch of high spirited people, and trying to remember all their names and faces!
I started one thread on Oct. 11 for National Coming Out Day, which garnered exactly 0 replies. My bad though, the title was “Oct. 11”. So, not knowing me, people probably thought it was my birthday or something, and didn’t give it a second glance. I’ve been acknowleged a few times when I’ve posted, so that’s kinda reassuring.
So I’m trying to read more here, get to know the place a bit better, and I’m finding it helps.
After spending way too much time with search, it seems I’ve started 22 threads here. I know that there’s at least 2 missing from that, as my one Pit thread seems to no longer exist and one in ATMB didn’t seem to turn up either. Of all those, only one made it to multiple pages. I guess that means that I post about 50 responses for each new thread I start.
Wendell Wagner wrote:
Wendell, please, no, we’ve already got somebody for that!
Seriously, I think most of us feel like we’re shouting down a well most of the time. I think a lot of people don’t want to post a “yes, I agree with you” post unless they have something else to add as well. If you want my advice, and you probably don’t, unless someone is actively assaulting you, you probably have more congenial company than you know.
Hey, I’ve only started two threads and already this one is on page two. Maybe I have a flair for this…