I meant no offense talking about 'lurkers'. I wasn't trolling or instigating. It was from my perspective regarding an unmeasured quantity or factor. (When I lurk, I own it and don't feel I need to justify it to anyone.)
Everyone "lurks", "observes", or really "just hang out" as some point. I lurk more often than not in other forums, Discord channels, and else where. Everyone has their reasons. For example, my "use-case" for lurking:
- I'll glance over the forum to see if something is worthwhile to demo and support. else I move on.
- I've been a poor student, and even more poor after school. Life's circumstances can be unforgiving. So I try to pay it forward & encourage engagement. That's we move forward (and together no less.)
- A forum (not this one), it can be very "trolling". Although I've been trolled here.
- I don't have anything to actively contribute.
- IRL is happening so the best I do it read. I had some medical stuff happening for most of January. Plus, my dog almost died this month too.
- I may be feeling more quiet or introspective so the chatter's signal-to-noise can feel a bit banal.
- To observe how Devs manage their projects as I'm thinking about dipping my toe in that water.
This Dev is amazing compared to so many here at f95 and elsewhere too. Engagement is priceless for Devs even if IRL is a challenge in any given way to support them.
Having a quantifiable number of forum visitors (unique, repeat, etc.) will help WDS measure their development priorities.
Lurker, being a Wallflower, Watching, or how ever one labels/expresses (or not) their silent presence is fine. This place is pretty inclusive. Again, when I wrote that off the cuff, it didn't sound like an insult or insinuation to me. It sounded like an acknowledgement of a genuine silent majority -- an unknown "unknown" metric, nothing derogatory towards anyone.
I hope this helps clarifies my stating, "... That's not accounting for the those silent, lurking on the thread. ..."