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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Buffy is my gateway drug to overcoming shyness

I just love this. Buffy was my gateway drug to SO MUCH STUFF. I can't even begin to list it all. (But - yup, you guessed it - I'm gonna try.)

Using the Internet for anything other than CNN, Salon, shopping and e-mail

The concept of spoilers

The concept of shippers

Comics

Fan-fic

Buying videos/DVDs (rather than renting them)

Buying books about TV shows

Buying books about TV stars (unauthorized ones at that)

Reading scripts for fun

Reading and obsessing about TV show writers and lighting directors and make-up specialists and set decorators

Watching ONLY the credits of non-Buffy shows for familiar names of directors, writers, and producers

Taping something while I'm watching it

Watching a show because of who writes it not who stars in it

Listening to talk shows on the Internet (succubus club)

Watching show vids

Buying soundtracks to musicals I've never seen

Action figures

Farscape

Whew! There is more - but I have fear that this will get cut off. Boy - I was really fricking boring before I started watching Buffy.

I've always perceived the lurkers as the audience to those of us who jump up on stage to state our cases, trot out our stories, and generally just make ourselves known. If I put something up on the board and get no response, I console myself with thinking, "well, someone in the several hundred people out there saw that and appreciated it."

Emergency whitefont in Angel, please.

Kiba Rika "Angel 3: Big Damn Evil, Sir." Jul 6, 2003 5:22:52 pm PDT

Okay, so I don't really live here anymore, but I come by almost every day to read Sunnydale & Beep & COMM, and I'd like to request that every famous person who dies not get mentioned in Sunnydale Press. Unless a Buffista was close-personal-friends with Kate Hepburn/Barry White/Buddy Ebsen, it doesn't seem quite appropriate for the forum.

Sorry to be a whiner, just thought it warranted a comment.