When you post a thread and the majority of people who view it are guests - does this also leave you with a weird feeling?

[noname223]

We have a lot of visitors recently but I don't know why. I once did a thread many years ago about the nature of lurkers why they are here? What do they want? And what do you want to tell them?

This reminds thar once Grok AI joked about me I would anxiously refresh the website of my threads to check which people are viewing them.

I have the feeling there are some reasons why a lot of visitors look at threads. I think when a thread contains potentially ethically problematic or controversial content more guests are viewing them. Also when the content might be a legal grey area this attracts more visitors. Or in general when a thread makes this forum look bad. One has to add though that this also applies when the title suggests that while the actual content of the thread isn't like that.
These are at least my impressions.

My theories are: guests want to confirm their negative notion of this site in order to judge us.
I am someone with past psychosis and some people would question my rationality when it comes to suicide. Even though, when you look through my post history it proves my life quality is really bad for many years, I don't have good future prospects and that I already tried a lot to improve.

I could imagine when something is in a legal grey area more journalists and the police is drawn to these threads. And I assume they don't have as many accounts on here.

What are your theories?

 

[ilovecats1]

i was a lurker here for two years before opening an account. i just used to look at the methods megathread and sometimes check some new threads of how people were doing i think its mostly people like that.

 

[Lost in a Dream]

I'd like to believe that a lot of the guests are simply potential members who are lurking but haven't joined yet. As long as I've been here, it can be easy to forget that I too was once a guest before I joined because I did look at the forum for a few days before I joined and I'm glad I did because it's one of the very few communities I'm a part of where I truly feel understood.

While it may be true that some of the guests are pieces of garbage looking to screenshot posts so they can use them out of context to make the forum look as evil as they possibly can by twisting our words, that isn't the case for all of them.

 

[unluckysadness]

I was a lurker too (every member was a lurker...)
You need to be a lurker before becoming a member. I think that 90% of "lurkers" have real suicidal thoughts. Maybe 10% are here just because they are curious ?

I was hesitating before creating an account, it's not that easy.

 

[Set Real Goul]

A month ago, I was a lurker myself. When I was reading everything I wanted to know about my CTB method, I was just browsing the site, looking at what was there, and scrolling through the Offtopic and Recovery sections from the beginning. So these are just potential participants or people who are afraid to create an account here.

I could imagine when something is in a legal grey area more journalists and the police is drawn to these threads. And I assume they don't have as many accounts on here.

I think you're a bit too paranoid

 

[_Gollum_]

Ngl I didn't even know up until I read this post that you could see how many guests were viewing a given thread...

 

[noname223]

4 guests are viewing the thread with me as the sole member who views it. And I am quite sure if I bump this thread this will quickly change. What does this imply?
Edit: Okay just more guests are viewing it now. I was wrong...

 

[troubled_puppet]

4 guests are viewing the thread with me as the sole member who views it. And I am quite sure if I bump this thread this will quickly change. What does this imply?
Edit: Okay just more guests are viewing it now. I was wrong...

My guess (founded on nothing) is that there's various bots that index / scrape the site, but i have no proof, and i don't even know what they'd be programmed to do.

you mentioned you refresh to see who's reading your threads. im opposite . i post a reply to something and then run away. haha. sorry. trying to get better on followup.

For what it's worth. I've been online for a long time, and went through various name changes through the last two decades. met people i cared about. met people who taught me hard lessons.

every time i come across my favorite color combos, or i see names close to my own or people i know irl, all i can worry about is whether or not if it's people out to get me and make fun of me. it's jarring and gutting and stressful. and i have no clue if im just paranoid. (Im probably jsut paranoid.) im so stressed abuot my paper trail every day and that i fcked it all up somehow.

but anyway. take care.

 

[SilentNight1998]

I joined very recently (a couple of days ago I think). I had been researching various suicide methods, their accessibility to me and their lethality as I have a history of suicide attempts that have never worked.

After looking through many pages on google and reading different articles and information online, I came across a post on here. I spent a few hours reading various posts on the methods I was considering. I wasn't sure if I was going to join or not but after a few hours I decided to join and make account. I can be a bit shy because of bullying and so often I would rather watch than participate but I haven't felt like that here. I guess people everyone here that posts or comments is feeling a similiar way to me.

I would like to hope that most of the guests lurking are people like me and not people with negative intentions.

 

[Forever Sleep]

I don't usually look who's viewing my threads. I figure people will either respond if they relate to a thread or, have the capacity to be empathetic/ sympathetic- when I'm venting. Or, they won't.

As for guests viewing threads- I suppose that will widely fluctuate. Depending on how notorious the site is. I imagine the amount increases when YouTubers target the site. How many bots are about. How many people are lurking. It will obviously depend on the thread too- how interesting it is to people.

I suppose I sonetimes worry about lurker's motives for being here. Although, I suspect the majority are either bots or people deciding whether to join the site themselves.

 

[Pluto]