Does anyone.....

[WayneLigon]

No-one would even notice, no.

 

[megamania]

I'm back. Still down but I put the more painful and lethal things in the closet. For now.


It just bothers me how few people really care about each other in the world.

By the way- Hellhound- I did ask in some hivemind months ago where you were. Just to let you know.

 

[Henry]

Posting the first storyhour worked for Piratecat.

Well, that, and becoming President of the Message Boards.

I think, Megamania, that Wickett is right on the money. The more friendships you establish, just as a consequence of sharing conversation with people, the more known you become, just as in real life. Real Life, however, is how I got to REALLY know a lot of the people here, because I've had the fortune to go to local gamedays and conventions with lots of them, and through that a couple have become acquaintences, and even some friendships.

When that happens, you start having people saying, "hey, where's so-and-so? I haven't seen him post in a week!" You stick out just by being yourself.

 

[Henry]

And I was thinking about Airwolf the other day, RW. I miss his sigs.

edit: he last signed on 2/14/04.

For a long time, I've felt the same of a former poster here, went by Wolfspider. He stopped posting about a year ago, about two months after voicing about some painful relationship problems, and never returned any e-mails. It bugged me a bit, but without any personal info, I couldn't really make an inquiry - much less the fact that in the end, somebody's personal life is their own, and I wasn't about to intrude. All I can say is I hope he's OK.

To be fair, there are, what? 12000 people here on the boards. In a town of 12 thousand you can't possibly know everyone. Some people I form friendships with, others I only know as casual acquaintances. Some, like you, I had managed not to notice even though you've obviously been around, what with your nearly 3,000 posts.

Some interesting facts, because I'm bored:

--Approximately 15,224 members have at least 1 post. The rest of the signed-up members (around 27,000 or so) have no posts to their account.

--of these 15,000 members, just over 3,000 have more than 79 posts to their accounts. I'd call this the "active" base of the community, excluding most casual lurker/posters, alternate ID's, etc.

That said, that's a HUGE number of people.There are 5,000 people in my hometown, but I might physically interact with 30 or so with any regularity, and only actively pay attention to 10 or so.

Out of my whole day, I physcially interact with an average of maybe 50 people, and only actively about 10 of those the majority of the time. So on the forums, as in the physical world, people come and go all the time, but each one of us might concentrate on anywhere from 10 to 50 of those people at any one point in our lives. It doesn't make us bad, just human, and finite.

 

[Jdvn1]

Maybe the PbP forum mods gobbled him up?

Maybe. It was a LEW game, though.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

It just bothers me how few people really care about each other in the world.

People care, but this is an internet forum. The medium makes it difficult to talk to each other, we have to talk at each other. And that's assuming that we don't have real life stuff pop up and forget to check the threads where we're currently wrapped up in a vital argument that could change the very nature of Western civilization (like if orcs have fanged or tusked teeth and don't even get me started on the whole grey/green debate). Allowances have to be made.

I don't think it's a case of people not caring that people drop off and on. It's just hard to notice and track.

Except for Sepchulcrave and Destan. Those guys I'm holding in my basement for ransom.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Maybe. It was a LEW game, though.

Hmm...well you never know.

 

[SpiderMonkey]

I guess some of that is also bound up in your motives for being a member here. I am a chronic lurker; if you averaged out my post count with the time I've been a member, you might see an average of a few posts a month. I'm not as interested in the active discourse that many of the 'regulars' enjoy so much as I am interested in stealing their ideas and using them in my games (bwahahaha!). So would anyone miss me? Nah, and I'm cool with that; I'm more worried about some of the regulars disappearing--who would I steal from then?

The funny thing is, rank (i.e. post count/recognition) hath it's priveledges; I will often scroll down a thread until I see something posted by a regular like psion, hong, eric, or crothian (aka the world's worst lurker), etc. to see what their input is. Is that weird?

 

[Crothian]

No worries. You're golden if Crothian posts in your thread.

There is a bad comment to made here.....for sure.....

 

[Jdvn1]

Hmm...well you never know.

Actually, sometimes... you really do.