Hundreds of Lurkers Vs. Dozens of Posters

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It's an interesting dynamic on WP.

I wonder why these hundreds of lurkers don't post. I wonder how the view count increases: by the number of actual views or by the number of unique views?

It's actually common among almost any forum.

Some have a smaller ratio, some a larger.

While you can expect it somewhere such as here, I wouldn't read too much into it.

Some, perhaps most views come from bots, AFAIK

I already formally posted I am here on this forum... if you don't want to take the time to find me then you're not worth talking to. Ask Rachel.

Let 'em lurk. When they want to post, they'll post.

I used to be such a wreck that I needed to read but didn't dare post. Then somebody called me a lurker. I was horrified! So I posted a pointless line or two just to get back on the side of the angels. I think it was very judgemental of people to disrespect me when I didn't post. Live and let live, please.

Kindly stop projecting your insecurities. I said it was an interesting phenomenon. Does that sound like I'm preventing anyone from living?
You are the one being judgmental.

Sounds like you're using faulty reasoning.

The view count on a thread is always going to bigger than the post count because many more folks read posts than respond to posts. Its common sense to assume that the folks who actually respond to a given post on a given thread are going to be (by definition) a subset of the folks who "view" the thread. It doesn't mean that everyone who reads but fails to post is a chronic "lurker". Surely you yourself read many more posts in many more threads than you actually respond to. I certainly do. And I am hardly a silent "lurker". Run my mouth all of the time.

Nothing wrong with being a lurker. I can go months without posting anything and then will post for a wee bit then go back to lurking.

All forums have lots of lurkers it's just the nature of forums.

I know from comments made by staff on other forums, that most of those lurkers/visitors are advertising tracking bots.

And I also know that from the way this forum puts up advertisements based on keywords in threads.

What's wrong with being a lurker? Are you telling me I have to reply to every post I read now, even if I have no desire to, and often it's better that I don't because I've let people know I feel all too much as it is?

I'm usually a lurker on any forum I happen to visit. I don't keep up with this forum as if it were a social network (I don't keep up with those either), so when I come here I'm either looking for specific information or just browsing for entertainment. Most of the time I don't have anything to add to any discussions I come across, and even if I do, chances are someone else has already said it.

On any forum, it seems like there are a certain amount of people who spend a lot of their time on it and are responsible for a lot of the posts. Established community members. On the flip side, there are people like me who spend most of their time elsewhere and just aren't paying attention that much. I think it comes from different preferences for how you use the internet.

In the old days of the Internet (by which I mean 1997, when I first got online), you were advised to lurk as much as possible. Best to get the feel of a place before putting your foot in it, as it were.

social networking web 2.0 really killed the internet bringing in all the normies

We were always told in those days that since less than 1% of the world used the internet we should always be both uncontroversial and anonymous as you could be easily found by some malicious person (usually in US university with their unlimited computer access and free local calls, damn it).

I've never shied away from just jumping in. I also rarely do the "introduce yourself" thing, I don't have anything against it, but I don't really have much to say about myself. Though I've been "online" since the early 80s.

I've found the best way to be involved is to get involved. So long as you're not being a complete ass, just starting to participate it the best way of becoming part of the community. Though I've never really felt I'm part of the community, but that's an evaluation which is probably not 100% accurate.