Just wondering how long some of you may have lurked here before actually signing up for the board. I think I might win the prize for longest lurk period given that it went from the last year of the AOL days till when I just very recently signed up…I wonder if someone can beat me?
I was on the site itself for about 6 months. Then I discovered the board and lurked for about a year and a half.
But lurking since the AOL days? Phew!
About a year and a half.
Finally signed up to reply to something, but never did. First post came a year later. 
I discovered the site a few years ago, but the message boards were so slow I soon forgot about it. ( might have been a temporary thing, but they timed out the few times I tried them). I came back last summer and lurked about 4 months until I signed up.
13.2 femtoseconds
Of course, just 'cause you’ve signed up doesn’t make you a non-lurker. Take me, for example. I’m at 35 posts (this is #36), yet I’ve been registered for longer than any of you. (That’s 0.06 posts per day, thank you very much!)
About 20 minutes. I stumbled upon a thread about vegetarianism and HAD to respond! Didn’t get really active until a few months later, though.
Ahem, and in reply to the OP, wow, I must’ve been an official lurker for a year or so before signing up. The thread that I read first?
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=15906
Ah, those were the days
Maybe a few minutes.
About one-tenth of a nanosecond.
I never lurked.
Name That Tune!
Embarassing. I’m at around .038 posts per day.
I’ve been toying with a “lurker appreciation” thread based on posts per day. Maybe we should have one.
About 3 years from first finding the site, I think. At first I just had a quick look at the boards after reading the daily column (I was reading from a busy workplace) but for the last 2 years I’ve been reading the boards on a nearly daily basis.
It took me a month or two to start posting after I signed up, because I wanted to wait until I actually had something to add to a discussion.
I lurked for about a month, then I signed up and started posting. I’m almost at my 500th post anniversary.
A few months…
Probably like 2 years. Well, I forget the specific date I started reading it, but I believe “Wally tries cybersex” was in Threadspotting. Too bad I didn’t register back when he graced the boards with his presence.
There recently (1-2 weeks ago) was a thread on posters with really low post counts, until it was exploded as a devious ploy to get the low-posters to increase their number of posts. 
Unfortunately I cannot find it, since by its very nature most of the posters were unfamiliar names. I think it was in MPSIMS.
About a year. I was just saving up.
Another non-lurker. I posted my first question (about Denis the Menace) before I had read a single thread.