forum members zero posts?

[tali122]

ive noticed to my surprise on a lot of website forums when checking the memberlists that there are huge amounts of members who have not bothered posting at all (yet some of these forums are quite specalized)- is this because they have nowt to say (why register?), have forgotten the forum totally (because they are serial registers), visit reguarly without having the confidence to post, or lost intrest?

[squiggle]

Quite often people only come to a forum to get an answer for one specific question, but before they can actually get in and read the forum they have to sign up. Once they are allowed to read existing posts, they often find their answer and have no reason to post or come back.

Some people like to 'lurk' for a while to see if that forum is really for them (Do they seem like nice people? Is the conversation interesting?), and when they find out it's not, they leave without posting. Again, they might have had to sign up to get in in the first place.

Of course, there are probably some who have signed up and then just lost the confidence to post, and others who just like to have a good read without feeling the need to join in.

[tomd]

In addition to the points above, people may change their mind about a username and re-register.