Yeah, I know, newbie’s are treated as only slightly better than pond scum round here, but I was really rather disappointed with the response the 2 threads I started got. And it’s not as if I hadn’t been lurking for a few years before I joined, so I thought I knew what would be crowd pleasing topics. Hah, did I ? Did I bollocks.
So, first thread with an extremely lame response, all about memory
Some of the most interesting threads I’ve read round here have started off with an OP about, “strange things you remember from…” so I thought a thread about this topic would be a winner. How wrong can you be
Then I posted a thread just yesterday about my hypochondria
I’ve seen lots of illness based OP’s that have garnered lots of good advice and sympathy, but there’s none left for me, it seems 
So, why is this? I’ve seen some stuff posted in MPSIMS with titles like “Watching paint dry- your favourite stories.” that get waaay more attention than I have managed to generate so far.
Is it because I’m a newbie?? Do I word my titles badly?? Not engaging enough threads??? Bad body odour??
Please help, or else I shall have to resort to a few populist threads like “Tell me a story that shows you in a good light- long as you want” or, “your favourite pizza topping”, or failing that, I’ll just have to take all my toys home and play w…ahem, by, myself
Help, advice, attention of some kind, heck, I’ll settle for insults at this point 
Don’t worry, I’ve had a few disasters in my day (heh), and I don’t think it really has anything to do with you being a newb. It could aslo be that you don’t put your threads in the right forums, or maybe your threads just come at a time when not very many people are accessing the SDMB. My most successful thread so far, “Help to be all Cool and Asskick-y” I don’t even remember my unsuccessful ones.
It’s not you. It’s not your threads or your newbieness. Sometimes threads just die.
I’ve been here for more years than I care to figure out, with more posts than I really want to count and I’ve got threads with absolutely no responses.
Don’t change a hair for us, stay, little valentine, stay.
I’m a newbie too. Right now it’s fun for me just to be able to respond to a few threads. Only started one, and THAT was to introduce myself. Got several nice,welcoming responses, and now I feel settled in. Do you feel as if people think you’re presumptuous to start a thread because of your newbiehood? Possible. Perhaps some of our members of long standing will stop by with their thoughts on the subject. Can I get a witness?
Well, I joined when the board was quite a bit smaller, and I’m a fairly opinionated and articulate sort of fellow, and even so, I didn’t have people calling me an idiot until I’d racked up, ooh, thirty-odd posts. So keep trying.
Seriously, though … it’s not that newbies are pond scum, exactly, it’s more that this is a fair-sized board, there’s a lot to read, and people will, inevitably, look for stuff from the names they know … If you keep on trying (and don’t try too hard, you do not want to be seen as a prospective troll), then people will get to recognize your name, and interact with you. Provided you’re not a troll, a loon, or deadly boring, that is. Hope this helps.
There’s no way of predicting which threads will thrive and which will die. As much as people talk about their pets and ask for veterinary advice around here, I thought for sure my “Ask the vet tech” thread would be a big hit. I don’t think it ever even got onto the second page. I figured my current pit thread about getting bitten would get a few "Hope you’re all right posts and die quickly and quietly. It’s garnered more response than all my previous threads combined.
It’s nothing personal, it’s just that stuff like that is totally unpredictable.
The fact is, this place is full of poopyheads who wouldn’t recognize a brilliant thread if it was labeled “Brilliant Thread” - and no, I’m not bitter because most of mine drop like lead. I figure everyone is intimidated by my wit and style and verve and stuff like that. So they get even with me by ignoring my threads.
That conviction gets me thru the day. 
Like those before me have said, being a newbie isn’t necessarily a curse for starting threads. Granted, there are those who get replies just because of who they are, but for the most part, it’s all luck and timing. Don’t sweat it. Let your brilliance shine in other people’s threads, let them get to know you, and some day, someone may do a search for your stuff, and you’ll have a semi-successful thread.
Or not. What do I know - I still haven’t managed to develop a cult-like following. <sigh>
Don’t worry about it. The majority of my threads don’t generate many replies and look how long I’ve been here!
Don’t think it’s a newbie thing at all. Threads die all the time with no responses. Combination of things, I think. If you post at a busy time, it’ll be pushed off the front page quickly. Other times people will be distracted from two or three other really interesting sounding threads on the same page.
Other times, people will read threads but just have nothing to contribute. In your case you specifically asked for, “thoughts, help, shared experiences or advice.” Many people wouldn’t have any experience involving hypochondria and thus wouldn’t be able to contribute.
It’s partly a newbie thing. I still suffer from it greatly, because I behave on these boards like a fairly timid newbie. I don’t interact much with other posters, I rarely get into arguments (and intentionally try to stay out of argumentative threads), and I’ve never met anyone here IRL, so my name (and history, and any possible small worth to my posts) is still unknown even at over 1,000 posts.
But here’s how to get lots of responses to a thread. Pick a popular topic. This is my most popular thread in a very long time, and you’ll notice I’m not even participating in it. (Being so far out-classed in Tolkien lore by the responders.)
It’s not a newbie thing. Sometimes it’s hard to predict just exactly how well a thread will do.
And threads started by newbies can sometimes go to spectacular lengths, like the “Scalar Weapons” thread currently running amok in GQ. As of this writing, it’s got 655 replies and over 18,000 views. And it was started by someone making their first post.
I’ve been around for a while on the SDMB. Started this thread yesterday, which I was certain to get responses.
It did.
2 of them. You can just hear the tumbleweeds go through that one now.
My opinion, to be successful, you have to come up with a thread like…Bart Simpson, eating p_e, writing “Hi O__l” on his etch-a-sketch while shooting at his sister with a 1920’s S__e D__h R__y (the letters won’t print anymore) and flaming Ned Flanders for being a fundy after making ethnic slurs at the dude owning the liquor store. That thread would fly.
Now, there is potential pit thread material…(colour, flavour, mould, heheuhe)
You said insults are okay. hanza, you shouldn’t have done that….You seem far too nice for that, but you asked, so here goes.
So, hanza, how many syllables in odour? Three, four?
(now watch me promptly get hammered for doing this to you)
Welcome to the boards, hanza!
Actually, I’m an insufferable snob when it comes to reading threads. In the aforementioned threads, there were too many uncapitalized letters and not enough blank lines between paragraphs for my taste, so I did not read the original posts. I’ll ignore improper capitalization for a post with four or five lines, but not if it is over ten lines or thereabouts. I know it’s a rather prejudiced thing that I do, but I do it all the same. Improper word choice, misspelled words, and other errors in grammar do not bother me greatly (especially if a person speaks English as a second or third language), but improper capitalization and no blank lines between paragraphs drive me insane. I’m sure that I have at some point read and posted posts that had improper capitalization and insufficient blank lines, but those were the two things that stood out to me.
At this point, I will fall victim to Gaudere’s law.
By the way, I shouldn’t share my favorite watching paint dry experience in this thread, should I?
Naw, it’s not because you’re a newb.
Some threads just sink like a stone.
Golly, I didn’t think that thread got a single reply. It got one, though! Whoohoo!
That one at least did better than Locations pics from Scooby Doo 2, the abject failure of which I suppose should go some way towards increasing my general regard for the intelligence of my fellow Dopers.
On reflection, I observe that the common, um, thread that these two postings share is their reliance on very poor-quality frame-grabs from the little video camera I tote around with me. So at least I can learn from that.
My advice to you is to start a thread about something which you imagine to be a common physical complaint relating to one’s soft bits, which actually turns out to be entirely limited to you, and is so far-from-normal that people find it hysterical. That baby’ll stay up near the top of page one for longer than you ever thought possible. (Just a hunch I have.)
Beryl, the simplified spelling loons never got a foot thru the door except in the U.S., and you can be quite sure that most of us outside your borders are laffing up our sleeves at your black sheep spelling conventions, so I don’t think that’s really as much of a chink in hanza’s, um, armor that you think it is. 
It’s not you. Some of my threads generate dozens of replies and hundreds (sometimes thousands) of views. Then again, others get dropped like a live grenade. My IMHO electric guitar and saxophone threads went to Hamster Hell in a pink ribboned handbasket.
On the other hand, my “100 Arms of Shiva” and “Sympathy Card for Saddam” threads did quite nicely. I’ve got ones active in just about every single forum right now. Drop by for a gander at them if you wish.
Like someone else here said. More lines between paragraphs please. And it’s not because I’m a “text snob”. In the past few years I’ve been a victim of plain old garden variety “needing reading glasses,” and trying to read a huge block of squashed together text is really difficult.
There have been some OPs that I’ve struggled through because they were “that good”. But for the most part, if I open a thread and am confronted with a wall of text unrelieved by spacing. I usually will just back right out again.
Well, if you pick a controversial topic, take an extreme postion and refer to others (and their opinions) in insulting and obscene terms it will sometimes generate some activity.
See, there are certain people here who are known as Illuminati. I won’t even try to name them all, but four have already posted to this thread. If you treat them as they require*(instructions below), your future posts will receive many responses.
*Send FairyChatMom and Biggirl chocolate. Lots of chocolate.
Steve Wright and Jeff Olsen will usually be satisfied if you post links to nekkid pictures of yourself.
You now know what you have to do. Success is yours for the taking…
Probably not you. I mean it might be but it’s more than likely not. You just never know.
I started a thread over in MPSIMS about my mom and her little accidents (she’s 79) and so far everyone thinks I beat my dog and humiliate my mom. Feh. I thought it was funny and so did my mom. Can’t tell about the dog, it ain’t speaking to me.
It’s because you’re a noob.
Well, it is. There are 40,000 members on these boards, with more joining every day. A person can only read so many threads in one day, and they’re going to go for the threads by posters they recognize. If I’ve got a choice between something from Scylla and something from Some Guy You’ve Never Even Heard Of, its not even a question. I’m going with the reliable source. Especially if the hampsters are lagging: it might ten minutes to open the thread, and I don’t want to take that time to find some garbled mess of leetspeak.
And then there’s the matter of experience. Writing is a skill, and like all skills, it improves with practice. If nothing else, if I see someone has 5,000 posts, I’ll know he’s at least had a lot of practice writing. And the more you practice (by posting in other poeple’s threads) the more people will get to know you. Next thing you know, not only will you be able to write that killer OP that perfectly expresses your thoughts, but people will recognize your name from when you posted in their threads, and check out yours to see what you’ve got to say.
Generally, this place is actually very newbie-friendly. Still, there are a few things you can do to make your entry into the SDMB smoother. Don’t pit anyone until you’ve got a couple hundred posts under your belt. Nothing says “troll” louder than a guy with 5 posts taking someone to the Pit. Even if it’s a deserved pitting, it looks sketchy. In general, be careful when starting new threads in the Pit. They can turn on even the most experienced posters. Just ask Zenster.
As has been suggested, capitalize and format your posts properly. It may seem like a pain in the ass at first, but they’re conventions because they work. It makes you easier to understand, and it makes you look like you know what you’re talking about. Spelling is optional, but effort is appreciated. Leetspeak is to be avoided at all costs.
Most importantly, though, is don’t sweat it. If your thread dies, it just wasn’t meant to be. If someone gets insulted by something you said, don’t bother arguing wether or not they should be insulted, just apologize and move on. Never post in anger. Back off, cool down, wait a while. Wait 'til the next day: it’s a message board, not a chat room. Take your time.
And remember this above all: Always, always previewq.