I read this post this afternoon at work, and felt led to reply to it. Since I can't actually post a response there, I typed it up in a text document and brought it home on a disk to post it tonight, hence the unusual format. Lireyln's words are followed by my reply in brackets:

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The smallness hurts because it makes one feel much more conspicuous as a newbie (and I feel like a newbie, even though I've been irregularly posting/lurking here for three and a half years). It's like the difference between moving to a small town and moving to New York City. In a big city, you have a certain margin for error: there are so many people and so much going on that even if you do something really stupid, most people won't notice, and you still have a chance to build yourself an identity apart from those initial mistakes. In a small town, on the other hand, everybody's watching you and forming opinions about you from the beginning, so there's really no room for you to make a mistake.

[REPLY: I disgree. I doubt there is anybody here who hasn't made some sort of blunder that they wish they could take back, whether here, or elsewhere on-line, or in everyday life. I can think of a particular incident a few years back where someone who I would now consider an established regular here said some things in chat that made me and a number of others present pretty angry. I recall some fairly harsh words being spoken. But this person didn't leave forever, and I'm glad that he didn't, because I see him now as vital part of the community, and my opinion of him hasn't been defined by that disagreeable first impression made when he was a "newb".]

The other big obstacle I see that is unique to this forum is the tight community of Rinkies who have been here for years, who know each other, who spend a lot of time in chat, who go to RinkUnions, etc. I'm not complaining about the existence of this community, I think it's great, and I only wish I could have gotten in earlier so I could have been a part of it.

[REPLY: Believe it or not, I know exactly where you are coming from. I've been active in the community long enough that I've been here longer than most, but there was a time when that wasn't true, and at times I can honestly say that I felt like an outsider. I still feel like I missed out on something special whenever I go back and read old messages from the early days of the forum. However, I am a part of the community now, and that's because I just dove in, shared my thoughts and ideas, participated, and was accepted. The community here is much larger now than it was then, but I think that is a testament to the accepting nature of it-- it keeps growing because we enjoy welcoming new members into the fold. Yes, the tight community of older Rinkies exists, but I believe that if you hang around and keep contributing long enough, you'll become a part of it by default.]

However, you, the Rinkie community, need to decide what to do about us, the outsiders who still love this site and would love to be regularly engaged in discussions on this board. Do you really want our participation? It's my feeling that some do and some don't; or that most say they do, but when the moment really comes, they'd rather read and respond to posts by their friends than by strangers. That's only natural, but in a community as small as this it inhibits the entrance of "new blood" that several of you have been calling for.

[REPLY: I want your participation. I certainly don't base my responses in this forum or in the chat room based on who is posting, but rather on the subjects that capture my interest. By the way, I must say I'm as shocked as Sam that you, who have been posting here for years, still think of yourself as an outsider.]

I post far less often than I'd like to, simply because when I do post, there are rarely any replies. Without any kind of feedback, I don't have any idea whether my posts are even being read, let alone what kind of reaction they're getting. And it just feels like there's no point in posting here, when I can write in other places where I will get a response.

[REPLY: I mentioned earlier in this thread that I read nearly every new post on this board. I'm not exaggerating. If you've posted to this board at any time over the last five years, I've probably read it, unless the topic was mathematics or logic puzzles. (I usually skip those ones because they're soooo long and don't really interest me at all!) I've probably responded to many of your posts in the past. I've even gone back into the forum archives and read many entire threads that were concluded long before I arrived here. Reading through new forum posts was the highlight of my day at one point, and even now, I get excited when I check the forum and see new posts. So don't think your forum posts are going unread.]