Middle aged gentleman in NC here.
I am a semi-lurker. I pop into a few threads here and there. So just wanted to show here.
70+ yo cis female, long time lurker, occasional poster. Snarkers of the SDMB, I salute you! Thank you from the depths of my heart. I don’t think I could have made it through 2016-2020 without the bitter and dead-on accurate pillorying of the former executive administration. You didn’t save me from despair, but you all gave me lots of company. 
Love you all, and keep up the good work.
Usually by the end of the thread the ignorance has either been fought or clear battle lines have been drawn and there doesn’t seem much of a point.
I have been a lurker here since July of 1999. 22 years and my average per day post count is .44
So, like mikecurtis I was a long time lurker (10-20 years). I was even a deep lurker, in that I didn’t bother to have a membership. I’d been reading the 'dope online for years, and following interesting threads from the SDMB that showed up on the main dope page. But taking the time to learn the ins-and-outs of another message board felt like too much work.
And like lancia there’s always the fear that you’ll make yourself look like a fool, or just too ignorant to contribute anything useful. So it was easier follow along for the fun, and to safely mock certain posters who always seemed to argue from a point of ignorance without having to expose my own.
What changed was the board Changeover and COVID. I was at least familiar with Discourse, and everyone else was going to to be learning the ropes of the new tools at the same time, so at least I felt I’d be on an even playing field. And with COVID, my opportunities to have talks/debates/arguments with friends and co-workers took a massive digger. So I took the chance.
So, that’s my feelings as a former Lurker. To other Deepdwellers out there, come on in, it’s not nearly as bad as you think.
I lurked for years (early Oughts), because I was learning stuff. I’d never seen a board with so many smart people before, and I guess I was getting enough entertainment (and education) from reading.
And I’m secretly an introvert, so lurking felt easier than jumping in with my half-formed personal opinions.
43 y/o male in southeastern Massachusetts (howdy, neighbor @Lurking_Quahog). Was part of the old SDMB on AOL, and joined the first available day in March 1999. My user number is (well, was before the discourse jump) 47.
I have 888 posts in 22 years. This makes 889.
I read through the board every day. Generally evenings as part of my wind-down routine. I used to contribute far more, but prefer to keep to myself, frankly. Two ears and one mouth and all that.
Greetings from Madison, Wisconsin. I first discovered The Straight Dope as a regular column in the Isthmus (former local weekly) back when I moved here in the mid 90s. Took me a lot longer to get into the message boards, but I’ve been reading posts almost daily for about five years and finally created an account in June 2020 thinking it would be fun to start posting but never could come up with anything informative or witty to say. This thread seems a perfect place to break the ice!
Thanks! 
I try to be more active than I used to be.
I guess I qualify. It’s hard to believe that 18 years have gone by since I joined.
The collective wisdom and quality of discussion here is hard to beat.
Why don’t I post? Most debates aren’t lacking for liberal/atheist viewpoints. Most questions have someone more knowledgeable than me already responding. I don’t have a cat to post pictures of…
And I am very much an introvert.
Maybe I will make more of an effort to join in. But probably not 
Thanks for chiming in with your first post, Arakhin! Welcome!
long time lurker. signed up for this thread.
its fun to read but usually someone make the point i might have made. so why bother posting.
don’t care for the politics. im a tad right of most of you.
i did post in the stealing amazon packages though since i had an account.
Welcome aboard! Thanks for introducing yourself. You may well be to the right of me but I don’t bite.
The more the merrier.
Could be interesting. Nice to meet you!
Middle-aged man in southern Arizona.
I lurked here off and on for at least two decades before signing up back in April when I saw a topic where I thought I could contribute.
I’ve since gotten wrapped up in the Crossword Clue thread game which keeps me coming back on the regular. (Speaking of which, I have a word to select…)
30s Michigander lurker here. Uber-lurker for several years before creating an account. Now just a standard issue lurker.
Great user name. 
From one 30s Michigander to another, I salute you.
Started reading Cecil back in a printed local (free) paper in CT in the mid-80s, and then online in the early 2000s - but only started looking at the SDMB in the last two years, from the links on the main page, which prompted me to join again (forgot my old PW) in 2019.
I mostly read (lurk?) and was surprised to see I had 187 posts since I rejoined in 2019.
The breadth of entertaining, informative and generally well-written random stuff to read about has been a godsend in this last 16 months of general isolation.
This. So vividly this. I tell people I found SDMB just when I most needed to people my world. I’m not backing off now just because my world is re-opening, I’m now firmly, irrevocably attached.