I often think of those with silent eyes and wonder why. I’m glad that you opened up SamLurker and, in so doing, encouraged others. This is a really good place to take a small risk and give your honest opinion. Most of us will read and consider or laugh with you. Some are nitpickers, God love 'em! Some will flame and some will ignore. Don’t take a lack of direct comment to you or a disagreement as a personal insult.
And be patient with those of us who are apt to give you advice when you didn’t ask for it.
I was a member of another message board that I posted to quite often, (where I first heard of the Straight Dope, btw) but now I mostly lurk there. I have never posted much here in all the time I’ve been registered. I mostly lurk in the background IRL too. I am just a shy guy. But I am starting to get more self-confidence IRL and here. Hopefully, that will translate into more posting because I really like this board; I read it every day.
I agree completely with your points jweb, I’ve discovered that the problem with hanging out on a board like this with so many intelligent people (and seemingly experts in every conceivable area) is that by the time I get into a thread my brilliant insightful thoughts have already been stated by someone else.
“Tis better to be silent and thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.”
(variously attributed to Samuel Johnson, Abraham Lincoln, or Mark Twain)
Wow, someone who actually agreed with me. I’m honored
And I’m not sure what’s worse: seeing my “brilliant insightful thoughts have already been stated by someone else” or seeing my “brilliant insightful thoughts stated by someone else and immediately debunked and ripped to shreds”
Easiest way is to click the “quote” button at the bottom of the post you want to quote from. Or, you can code it manually. {quote}text{/qoute} with “[”'s replacing the “{”'s.
Like this:
And you’re almost 4 whole pages short on your essay, mister.
I don’t think i’ll ever manage to fully open up on these boards, there are so many members that at times it just gets intimidating. I’m not shy in real life so i really should be able to talk to people more often here. I don’t even know how big my post count is but im pretty sure its below 50. I always have plenty of time to post and read what other people have to say almost every day but persuading myself to post is the hardest part.
I haven’t made any friends here yet which is my fault entirely, and since ive been registered for about 6 months (i think) i thought i would have been doing better than this by now. Out of all the things i have posted here more than 50% of it was because i was trying to become more well known but i find myself sticking to the less opinionated subjects and they only ever seem to be from MPSIMS.
So, from this day forth, i will strive to increase my post count to 1 per day, which believe me is a very big challenge for somebody who is almost scared to post. Now i just have to find threads i want to post in every day.
This is no ordinary lurker. Not long after she joined, she drove to meet up with a bunch of us strange Dopers to do a shopping weekend. And 6 months later she spent the weekend with a bunch of Doper wimmins at a cabin.
She should post more; she’s got a fabulous sense of humor and the best stories! Also, great hair.
Blah. I don’t post often either, but read the boards essentially every day. Extremely shy in real life and all message boards, even ones much smaller than this. So… to the OP, I know where you’re coming from.
Just chiming in again to say how wonderful everyone has been, and how happy i am to see people coming out of the woodwork.
This has been a great confidence builder for me and several others, i hope. Posting is fun! Seeing responses to your comments is uplifting! Your first thread is like a child almost…ok, mabey not, but work with me here.
Exgineer is right on target when saying that you can’t do much worse than some others have done. Every single respondent to this thread has posted intelligently, and i for one look forward to seeing more from them.
Okay, so I posted a direct response tomrweebles, and Einmon jumped in there in between our posts. You will all notice that I didn’t hop right back in make it clear that I was responding to mrweebles.
That’s because I assumed that you were all adults with reasonable attention spans.
That’s Lesson #1.
You will also not that, although there will inevetably be numerous typographic errors in this post (because I’m just using the “Quick-Reply” box I love this feature and doing a lot of coding by hand), that I will not jump right back in to point them all out to you and grovel for an apology.
That’s Lesson #2.
Certain self-aggrandizing individuals will post really long, pointless, and attention seeking posts.Not me, though. I’d never do anything like that… When you meet them at a DopeFest, you should just smile, shake hands, and realize that you could be hanging out with a much worse class of people.
That’s Lesson #3.
You shouldn’t take advice from established dipsticks.
That’s Lesson # Blowhard.
Now that that’s over with:
Welcome to the light of day, Lurkers. I propose a contest:
Let’s see who can come up with the best Sig for beegirl13 to replace the one she has now.*
*[sub]Honestly, I keep the “Show Signatures” thing in my profile turned off, and I only noticed her signature the other day when my computer lost my cookies for some reason.[/sub]
