Hi! I’ve posted a few times… but mostly just lurk while at work, so I don’t really have time to follow-up on posts. Typically it might be a day or two before I can respond, and by that time the conversation has moved on…
I must confess that I haven’t checked everybody’s profile for number of posts, so if I missed any first-timers, I apologize. Being a “Guest” keeps me from seeing the post counts directly.
That said, I’m very curious just how many first-time-posters we have “led to Christ” (as the old-time evangelists like to brag). 
So, if you’re a first-timer or if you joined SDMB to post in this thread (!) kindly let us/me know with a follow-up post. Now that we’re on a a new page (the way my pagination works anyway) such a thing might work as a summary sort of thing.
I’m toying with the idea of another poll similar to the one in the OP where you get to vote (without having to affect your post-count) on whether you’re a Lurker, a Poster, a Thread Starter, or the Son of God, or some Other designation. Maybe some other long-time heavy-user would like to steal my thinder and do such a thing? Have at, please.
Okay! I just discovered an easy and streamlined way to check the profiles of every poster in this thread. The little “Who Posted?” tool has links to the individuals’ profiles and it’s not overly time consuming to build a list such as this one for all the “Virgins” in the thread:
zombiebacon
Join Date
05-21-2011
Total Posts
1
azraiel
Join Date
05-09-2003
Total Posts
2
Cabari
Join Date
02-19-2003
Total Posts
2
ftfu
Join Date
05-02-2010
Total Posts
1
branjon
Join Date
06-05-2011
Total Posts
1
Cornish Magpie
Join Date
06-16-2011
Total Posts
2
Big Marlin
Join Date
10-20-2009
Total Posts
2
So you first-timers can skip the repost if you want to. This is the information I was curious about. Welcome to SDMB, all!
ETA: In case you don’t know what I mean by the “Who Posted?” tool, when you see a line in the posts list like:
Lurkers: Say something ( 1 2 3)
Zeldar Today 10:24 AM
by Zeldar 101 1,647 Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share (MPSIMS)
That number “101” is a link to “Who Posted?” Just click it and you get everybody’s name and their post count for the thread.
OK, I’ll own up and join the lurker party! I’ve read the boards for years and have posted maybe a handful of times - I’m too intimidated by the wealth of wit and wisdom on offer here to pollute it without good reason… I’d like to post more - perhaps this is my opportunity to turn over a new leaf and actually contribute once in a while?
Thanks for the endlessly fascinating discussion on offer.
There’s a cartoon with a mouse in it that I am trying to find that is relevant here. I think its only three panels and shows a mouse in front of a computer saying “I’ll just read what the smart people are saying” in the first panel. In the second, it just shows him reading. And in the third, he says “Okay…I’m in!”, as he obviously realizes that the people he considered smart aren’t any smarter than him.
Its pretty funny actually.
I’ve been lurking for well over a decade. Typical, “it’s been said already” or just as often the “I lack the follow up time”.
I did chime in a few times when Mike Nolan took over the SF 49’ers. Gave my full confidence that they had hired a quality coach. I guess I’m 0 for 1 right now. Good luck with Jim, we’ve enjoyed John!
Hi, I’m Lottie and I am a lurker. Like a lot of you I’ve been reading for a long time, just can’t get in there in time with, you know, coherent responses. Especially since ya’ll seem to do it so much better 
I try to get in there if I have something to contribute; I think I’ve answered a couple of movie trivia questions for people…just trying to be helpful.
May I just share something with the Genuine Lurkers in this thread? When I first arrived here and stuck my toe in the water (eight years ago this month) I was apprehensive about how I would be received and welcomed. Not many days into my journey here somebody had a “Welcome Newbies” (or words to that effect) thread and I joined in and had fun being greeted as part of a new group of recruits.
I need to go find that thread (and when I do I’ll come back with a link to it) so you can see who all was in my “class” and how many of us have been around in one form or another since those days. I might even kick it out of zombiedom to see how many others remember the thrill of getting started with that group.
Maybe some of you new posters will look back some months or years from now with a bit of fondness that you met so-and-so here and that you and they were posting your first posts here.
Something to think about anyway. I feel almost overwhelmed with the volume of replies and the spirit all of you are demonstrating. Thanks a bunch!
Here’s that thread I mentioned just now:
Welcome the newbies!
06-18-2003, 04:55 PM
Elza B
06-23-2003 06:57 AM
by Exgineer
76 932
Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share (MPSIMS)
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=3584721&postcount=15
====================
A couple others from that period that might amuse anybody who was around back then:
Master List redux
04-07-2000, 08:13 AM
Guest
Chrome Toaster’s Master List continues (as per suggestions)…
09-12-2003 07:56 AM
by UncleBeer
69 1,191
About This Message Board
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=3972859&postcount=69
09-12-2003, 07:04 AM
Zeldar
Guest Join Date: Jun 2003
I’ll play.
=======================
MASTER LIST (Newbies only) part 2
10-17-2000, 09:09 PM
12-06-2003 09:45 PM
by Call me Frank
493 8,140
Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share (MPSIMS)
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=3982131&postcount=449
09-14-2003, 10:22 AM
Zeldar
Guest Join Date: Jun 2003
Why not?
========================
I have decided it would be bad form to resurrect these myself (I’ll leave that to a more daring type) based on how this turned out:
This Is How I See It [“Alien”]
08-15-2001, 09:00 PM
Chez Guevara
10-09-2010 08:27 AM
by twickster
14 1,147
Cafe Society
However, despite the feeble effort at humor on my part, you might enjoy the linked thread in there to one of the most fun things I have been involved with in the years I’ve been here.
Anyone recall this classified ad from the Times?
03-08-2009, 07:59 AM
NineToTheSky
My hat is off to these co-conspiritors:
NineToTheSky
Bites When Provoked
mhendo
Chez Guevara
jjimm
kittenblue
Alastair Moonsong
BigT
I’ve posted 155 times in 10 years.
I knew it! I knew it all along. I could feel you all watching and listening and reading.
Damn it, come on out of the shadows, would ya?
Everybody thinks their topics will be roundly ridiculed, that their posts kill threads, that they’ll get torn to shreds by braniacs regardless. Get over that, I’m begging you.
And I second that there are some awesome user names in this thread that deserve a little more action, it’s such a waste.
Surely there are a few more Lurkers hiding out there somewhere!
Hey. didn’t read the last 15-20 posts above, but this is my first post on the SDMB. I don’t know how how exactly i have been lurking here, but my earliest memory of this place is 9/11. I feel like i was here for a few months before that, and figure i have lurked for at least 10 years. I don’t know if lurked is even an appropriate word for my case. I have read this site religiously since 2005ish, and compulsively since at least 2007. Oddly enough, i am not replying to this thread after one of my vigorous lurk sessions, but i found myself daydreaming about the SDMB and decided to Google “straight dope message board” and “lurkers” and came up with thread which i recall reading the good bulk of while it was more active. In fact, i haven’t found myself digging in the archives in years, because every day i am reading the boards and staying up to day. On a rare vacation away from internet, several times every year i find myself having to go 5 or 6 pages back to get up to date when i get back to the connected world. And i do jones badly for the dope on those times away. Ive had typed too much for now and must wrap it up, but hopefully now that i have registered i will have the willpower to become active in the SDMB community. I feel like I view this site as a source rather than an interactive being, ala Facebook; but after finally succumbing to the Facebook revolution, i think i can make the transition from lurker, to at least small time contributor. I hope i can influence those out there who are lurking just as i have for years. Break the fourth wall. it was way easier than i thought it would be to create an account.
lurk
FWIW, you two were the only names (of posters who identified themselves as lurkers) I recognized on the first page. Course, I don’t post as much as I used to, either…
Howdy, I’m BarkingDog and I’ll be your lurker for this evening.
Hello everyone.
Funny thing, I found SDMB by lurking the Jeopardy board where Diogenes prolifically posts as well.
I lurk pretty much everywhere I go, which sounds like I’m some e-stalker, but I’m relatively new here and finally made my account last week. I might mature into a regular poster someday. Probably not.
Hey, I’m ashamed to say…I lurk here virtually all day long, but it’s via my ipod so I virtually never post. That, and I really don’t have anything useful to add that someone else hasn’t said already. I even submitted my picture to the archives, but I should update it bc I have one I like more now
Even our lurkers are in the archives?
Almost makes me think I should put a picture in.
Almost.
Oh..and YourAdHere. I never have anything useful either, but it doesn’t stop me!
-D/a