Since joining a short while ago, one thing has struck me about this forum: the relative silence.

There are currently 239 members. But, based on the activity, there may as well be only what? Six of us?

And it's not like the rest of you aren't listening. If you look at the number of views each thread gets, then compare that to the number of responses, it's kind of scary.

In one case there are more than 300 views of a thread with only three comments. Typical numbers are 150+ views to a half dozen posts.

I belong to several forums and message boards, and have never run into this sort of activity before. Sure, there are always lurkers. But not in the ratio of this forum. So I'm really curious about it.

Do most of you not cook? Or are there other reasons why you are reading the posts, but not participating?

Don't forget - too many "guests" that just sit back and do nothing - no participation from any of them and for some reason - will not join a site. Sometimes I feel that guests should not be able to view recipes - this way they can join and hopefully participate as well. It is frustrating that there aren't more participating.

Mama, I'm sure you're right that many of those views come from guests, who are merely gleaning information and stealing recipes.

But even so. With 239 registered members I would expect a little activity other than the half dozen of us who seem to be posting regularly.

On most forums I'm familiar with, 7-10 percent of members post regularly, along with those who post from time to time. The rest, obviously, are lurkers. Which means we should be seeing from 15-25 regular posters, plus the occasional others.

What we're seeing is about 2% regular posters.

That's why I'm so puzzled. The folks who do post seem to be interesting, enjoyable people with a passion for food and cookery. So my problem isn't with what gets posted. It's that there aren't enough posters sharing their thoughts, views, recipes and ideas.

Maybe some of the others will see this thread and explain it to me.

Lets not forget some of these views are from spiders (i.e. google, yahoo) indexing the page, they use many different IP's. Other views may be results in a search engine where someone is looking for a specific topic and for whatever reason ends them here even if they are not looking for cooking information.

Also, some people just quick look up recipes, grab them, and go on their way making dinner.

BTW - many are intimidated when the forum is really active with very knowledgable cooks expressing different things. They really shouldn't be - everyone has their own degree of cooking knowledge and it is nothing to be ashamed of. The recipes offered on this site are relatively easy and very good - and more participation is expected. Many of us have been cooking forever and have much to share and enjoy doing so - too bad they won't join in. But then again - you can't force them. I still say lurkers should have to join and also - before they can view a recipe they should contribute one!