Guests....

[Benacre]

Lurkers I hate Lurkers. someone who takes the information but does not post. I once owned a forum and we banned all those lurkers who were members or guests for a year. This was a birdwatching site and I think we were attracting some egg collectors. One bloke knew all about us on the forum but had never posted anything at all!

He attended the birdwatching trips we organised but he was a band-waggon jumper

[ChrisB]

Re Lurkers - I know this will sound weird but not all of us are Lurking, we just don't feel we have anything useful to contribute and don't want to make complete fools of ourselves

There is a knack to writing on these forums, the wit that is shown never ceases to amaze me and has me rolling in the aisles, but I am never able to think of a witty comment myself, and being new to all this have virtually no knowledge to pass on, also it's rude to interrupt or so I was told as a child

So I shall have to continue to lurk and learn and maybe very occasionally join in

[Jaxom]

Chris. You are not a Lurker.
You have signed up and to date posted 69 times. On the lists of who’s online you appear as ChrisB and not 'Guest' so your a Grape and most definitely not a lurker.
Lurkers never sign up so are always listed as 'Guest'. Guests can view the forum for years with out making a move to participate in any of the threads.
As LJ said a lot of the ' guests ' are in fact search engines gathering information.

[Mrs Dobby]

Its a shame that some of the guests dont feel able to join in, even by asking the most basic dumb ass question they are contributing to the whole that is the vine! Afterall, there's no dumb question except the one you neglect to ask for fear of looking silly, and by asking questions you may well get others thinking or improve their knowledge by having asked a question that they hadnt yet thought of!

So come on you guests, get signed up and join in the fun!

[Alison]

One thing we don't know is if the guests are the same people always, if somebody is just having a look and then doesn't come back as it's not for them then it's a bit daft them getting a log in, however if they're reading all the posts for weeks on end it's a shame that they don't get the chance to ask their questions even if they're new and don't feel that they can advise much themselves.

[GeordieVik]

Re Lurkers - I know this will sound weird but not all of us are Lurking, we just don't feel we have anything useful to contribute and don't want to make complete fools of ourselves

There is a knack to writing on these forums, the wit that is shown never ceases to amaze me and has me rolling in the aisles, but I am never able to think of a witty comment myself, and being new to all this have virtually no knowledge to pass on, also it's rude to interrupt or so I was told as a child

So I shall have to continue to lurk and learn and maybe very occasionally join in

That's exactly how I feel Chris - I'm so new to all this, there is very little I feel I can add to most conversations!

I try though!

Vik

[JennieAtkinson]

I have to be honest and admit that I guest on a scrapbooking site. I like to see what is going on now and again, and pick up some ideas, but don't feel able to be part of another forum and join in to a great extent. So there may be some guests out there who feel the same.

I know the feeling Chris and Vik - at first I was a very tentative poster. I was SOOOOOOOO worried about making a fool of myself. But I think I did that and got over it! Everyone is great here and certainly no one would think anyone foolish in any of the questions they ask, or indeed answer. There is always another way of doing things, or learning about something new.