See, I *don't* want lurkers to feel unwelcome. I want them to step out into the glittering light and do that funky de-lurking thang. Because that's how new Buffistas happen.

See I did that. In Bitches, cause I didn't know there were steps to be taken, and it was amazing. Barely even lurked, just wandered out blinking a little.

Huh. My two cents make no sense.

To me, Plei makes sense.

Even knowing I'm not one of the town council members, to use an earlier analogy, it's made clear that I'm still part of the community.

I don't think I even know where the council meets, though I could guess a few of the members probably...

Honestly, just kind of looking to see if I fit in with this group. Seems like a good match but it isn't the kind of thing that you can say with certainty so soon.

Part of the community? We'll see...

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Honestly, just kind of looking to see if I fit in with this group. Seems like a good match but it isn't the kind of thing that you can say with certainty so soon.

shrugs Seems like a good match to me.

What you did Cass is probably what we would probably prefer folks to do if we had any kind of official protocol on the matter. Lurk for a couple weeks until you get the feel for the community, then jump in.

But I always like it when a longtime lurker decides to join in. I even like seeing folks delurk once a quarter. Seeing the same names come back around. Even as far back as TT I've gotten emails from lurkers who wanted to share something with me.

It's okay. It's a disquieting idea sometimes knowing that there are a lot more people reading than are posting. But my experience at least is that lurkers are a beneficient-to-neutral presence. I sort of presume that (for the most part) they wouldn't keep coming back if they didn't care about the conversation that was happening here.

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shrugs Seems like a good match to me.

Hec-liments -- especially when I don't think you meant it to be one --are good and lovely pretty things.

I just got a little creeped catching up on stuff, and for me, it's all catching up...
t blinks
Um, where am I?
t blinks again
Scurries back to Bitches...

oh and I'll wait on voting till I feel I've earned it...

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tina - fwiw, I lurked for 6 mos - to a year, before I posted (cc: Margaret). I was thrilled when you delurked tina, and happy when it became clear that you were fast becoming as addicted as the rest of us. I wasn't meaning to sound anti-lurker. It's just that pre-voting, to chime in on a decision-making process, a Buffista had to delurk. He or she couldn't just submit a ballot. So when people had a say in what we do, we knew who was having a say in what we do, and to a large extent, what they wanted in general, because we'd have already gotten to know them.

I'm sorry for any upset that earlier post caused. I thought I was clear in that I was just expressing a worry, that I knew wasn't a current problem (because I know how many people vote, and it seems to generally line up with how many people post), and that I didn't think we could do anything about it, anyhow.

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I don't think I even know where the council meets

Right here, babe. This is it.

I lurked for weeks on TT before I ever got up the courage to post, and TT was the first board I ever found (courtesy Anne Lamott mentioning her then-column). Spoiled by it, I never mastered the chat room, and light-on-black boards make me twitchy, as do shoutouts, asscaps ('cept for Rio's), bad spelling and gratuitous jargon (as opposed to evolved vernacular. I perceive a difference, whether there actually is one or not). When the threads began to multiply and picked up warp speed, I found myself tending to read and nod in agreement, and realized I was reverting to lurker mode. So I make the effort (and it is, often) to actually post comments now and then. Who said they thought of the lurkers as angels? Well-wishing but unspoken and unseen entities? Whenever I get a bit creeped by the thought of unknown people lurking, I conjure that image, and remember my own shyness and hesitation at stepping into the sparkly light.

It is lovely when a lurker decloaks. Lurkers are our Buffista spirit babies, after all. It's nice when some of them become official Buffistas.

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I didn't know there were steps to be taken

Steps? What steps? There are no steps.

People de-lurk differently, and I think how it turns out is more about the person than how they delurk.

Me, I read probably a couple hundred posts for context, and then started posting right away. I don't have the lurking gene.

The key I think, is patience and respect for a community that precedes you.

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I love it when lurkers post--new friends, new insights, new voices! It's all good. I lurked myself for a while and felt odd and self-conscious posting for a couple months, mostly because I already liked everyone so much and was hoping they liked me. Then I relaxed and became the blabbermouth you see before you.

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See, I *don't* want lurkers to feel unwelcome. I want them to step out into the glittering light and do that funky de-lurking thang.

But I also don't want people to feel pressured to delurk.

As I noted above, the vast majority of *every* online community is lurkers. Sometimes, that's all you want to do. That doesn't mean you don't have an investment in the community.

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Cindy - you could never sound anti-lurker to me - you were practically my delurking sponsor!

I think it is a different process for everybody. I felt very welcome. Some days I have moments of embarassment and shyness and nothing to say and then days where I just don't care and post like a posting thing. Like everybody, I guess.

Also - fridge fixed. AC fixed. Very Foamy.

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The funny thing to me is that I'm normally a lurker on other fora, and take a lot of time to get comfortable enough to make extremely rare posts. This even applied to the Survivor and Big Brother TT threads at Salon if I recall correctly. The only instances where I've made the plunge to posting almost as soon as I discovered a site were the Buffistas and the original Ultimate TV Bronze back in '97. So apparently Buffy is my gateway drug to overcoming shyness.

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