Mihow

Dear Lurkers,

—

by

Mihow
in

Recently, Toby had this idea of giving people a given number of times they can visit a site during a given amount of time. Eventually, should they lurk too much and not contribute to any given post but instead silently read and probably silently judge, (I’m paranoid and menstrual), the text would slowly begin to disappear. This idea made me laugh for two reasons: One, it’d be funny to see who might be driven to go away from a site forever and who might actually leave a comment from time to time. (Gerry, I’m talking to you.) Two, I also found this funny because he CAN actually do this. I married not only a total nerd, but a nerd with a vengeance.

After I stopped laughing about it, I declined having him actually do this to my site because I firmly believe that if I “forced” people to leave comments here and there, I’d eventually run out of traffic altogether.

So, to all you lurkers reading this. I SAVED YOUR ASSES, COWARDLY LURKERS! I SAVED YOU REAL HARD!

You owe me, for I stopped the creation of Revenge of the Nerd, Part 5.

P.S. To be completely honest, receiving or not receiving comments doesn’t bother me.

Comments

23 responses to “Dear Lurkers,”

  1. Jon Avatar
    Jon

    Like I posted before click me

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  2. mihow Avatar
    mihow

    You’re making little sense to me today, Jon. But it’s probably me.

    Like

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  3. Meshbetty Avatar
    Meshbetty

    I am a part-time lurker and damn proud of it. :o)

    Like

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  4. beth fabian Avatar
    beth fabian

    ALL RIGHT!

    i am guilted out! this is longlost penn state alum beth fabian here. and i discovered your site whilest trying to find the whereabouts of one gregg merges.

    needless to say, i still have no idea where he is in these united states, but i do join you for your rantings and whatnot a few times a week and am glad to hear all is well in your nexk of the world…….

    there you go! i’m out!

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  5. eco2geek Avatar
    eco2geek

    Hey, here’s a better idea. Do something with cookies where a number gets incremented each time a comment is left. When any poster’s made a certain number of comments, s/he wins a prize. Like your newly created “Bush as Pinocchio” t-shirt. Or how about an all-expense-paid trip to NYC.
    OK, so that last one sounds like I’m stalking you. Anyway, how exactly would PHPMaster Toby accomplish this disappearing text act?

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  6. mihow Avatar
    mihow

    Greg is here often. I’m kinda shocked, Beth. You got me.

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  7. mihow Avatar
    mihow

    eco2geek, i will have him respond to that. If I tried you’d be dumber after reading it.
    ps. greg is in pittsburgh.

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  8. sian Avatar
    sian

    …………………………………………………………………….

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  9. mihow Avatar
    mihow

    sian, you’re always a pleasure. While I know you’re not the biggest fan of NYC, you should really come visit us soon. We’ll keep you in Brooklyn. Promise.

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  10. Closet Metro Avatar
    Closet Metro

    Hi.

    (Don’t disappear.)

    (But the idea is cool. Penguin cool.)

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  11. Chris Avatar
    Chris

    Oh come on, you know you like it! The comment to the blogger is like the doughnut to the fat kid. Hey, that’s good! I have to use that in a post myself!

    See, commenting = inspiration, too!

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  12. mihow Avatar
    mihow

    Well, I do like donuts. Truth is, I found that I wrote more “openly” (for lack of a better word) when I didn’t have comments. At the beginning of this year, Toby moved my site over to a new server and upgraded to PHP5. In that time, we didn’t have comments on. And I sort of opened up more. So I guess it’s not that I don’t care about getting comments, but, in my opinion, one writes differently with comments enabled than if they were turned off. I’m not saying that’s better or worse or anything at all—just different. Maybe I’ll conduct an experiment.

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  13. maddie Avatar
    maddie

    Hi ~ rare poster, frequent lurker… I don’t post mostly because I feel more like an observer…not really in on the group…nothing much to contribute in the way of interesting… but I love reading your posts and you provide great NYC travel tips!

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  14. mihow Avatar
    mihow

    Oh dear. I promise I didn’t leave this post in order to get people out of the closet. Please believe me. I would admit to it. I wrote it because I thought his idea sounded kind of beautiful. In a way, it would emulate real life in so much as the longer one goes without calling or seeing someone the further they grow apart. It would be a visual interpretation of such a thing. I found it sort of beautiful and sad. And I kinda like that kind of sadness. It might also prove visually compelling.

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  15. j o h n Avatar
    j o h n

    oohhhh man, that would turn this into a collage crit class, where people are either fishing for compliments (“umm, nice mats”) or putdowns (“why ‘grunge’? to me this is ‘street’. completely ‘street’. anything but would render your piece completely trivial”) depending on what kind of person they are: polite or enternally bitter.

    all true statements maid at various crit classes through my college career.

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  16. j o h n Avatar
    j o h n

    maid = made

    I’m not that un-literate

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  17. mihow Avatar
    mihow

    I am silently critiquing your comment.

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  18. andrea Avatar
    andrea

    what if i have nothing useful to add? like for example, right now i am eating a steak sandwhich, and it is awesome.

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  19. mihow Avatar
    mihow

    Oh my. If that were a necessary law one had to abide by when writing stuff on the Internet, there’d be like three Web sites. And each of them would have maybe three pages. And I would have been arrested long ago.

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  20. Charlie Avatar
    Charlie

    maybe we can add a Tivo like “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” rating that people can assign to other people’s comments. I wouldn’t offer ratings on the posts since you’re the only author (and you rock, even when you’re drunk and blindfolded). This would give lurkers the opportunity to silently participate.

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  21. mihow Avatar
    mihow

    Might you rate my email, too? Some of those are interesting to say the least. heh.

    While I wouldn’t go as far as to say I rock. I would say that this has gotten me through many a days and I guess that’s why I keep it up. It makes me feel less lonely. or something. Plus, you crackers tend to make me laugh out loud. For sure.

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  22. eco2geek Avatar
    eco2geek

    We lurkers get to see both your tough New Yorker exterior, and your caring, vulnerable interior—sort of like revealing this can of shaving cream’s true contents.
    (Or not, just wanted to post the link. More Internet wierdness. :-)

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  23. dan Avatar
    dan

    hi…i know this isn’t the purpose of this site, but i’m trying to find “masque of the red” beth fabian, and i see she posted on your site….dan hoal from psu is looking for you….
    haller47@yahoo.com

    any help greatly appreciated….

    dan.

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