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I wish to offer my sincerest apologies to all of the authors here on BC. I have been a member here for almost 40 weeks, and have been a visitor for several years. Up until now I have been a “lurker”, reading stories and not voting or commenting on any stories that I like or dislike. I have read the blogs, and generally scan the comments at the end of stories, without adding anything of my own. (Though I have started to vote for stories that I like). I truly enjoy this site and most of the stories that are posted here, I like the community feeling and mutual support that is offered. The stories give me the opportunity to indulge in some fantasy about things that could never happen in my life. The only excuse or explanation that I can offer is that I am a relatively private person, not one to express my feelings readily, and not wanting any family members to know about my visits here. I know that the last is unlikely, but I am a little paranoid that putting things in writing could, or would, be found. So please accept my apologies, and keep posting your stories to this wonderful site. Thank you.
Comments
Don't apologise
I think there are a very large number of people with similar concerns about maintaining their privacy, and I suspect the majority of readers on this site are in the closet. I use a nom de plume for that very reason.
But it's good that you are now voting for stories you like. As a writer, that is the most objective feedback I receive about the overall popularity of my stories. The vast majority of people who show they like a story (by voting for it) do not comment on it - as a rough rule, I reckon the ratio is nine votes for every one comment, so you're certainly not on your own.
Enjoy the site. I hope it brings you great pleasure. You never know, perhaps you too will start writing a story.
Charlotte
Ratios
Don't worry about not commenting - there's no need to comment on everything you read (and for someone like me who typically spends a good 2-3 hrs/day reading stories here, it would be rather impractical!)
With the handful of stories I've posted, I've had between 3 and 35 comments, 23 to 109 votes, and 330 to 2,500 hits.
On average I get about 21 hits per vote, and about 8 votes per comment.
The site is 'open', so any content posted is theoretically available to search engines, but Google at least hasn't probed around BCTS much (whereas Stardust is heavily indexed). But as long as you're commenting on a private computer and don't use either your real name or a nickname you use elsewhere on the 'net, the chances of you being 'discovered' by a nosey parker are fairly small.
Conversely I do the opposite - since I've used the same nickname for practically everything I've done on the 'net for the past 10 years, Google can find about 21,700 references to my nickname, so I see little point in hiding it...
(Hmm...Google claims it took 0,86x the velocity of an unladen swallow to bring up that many results...)
As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!
English or European?
I thought the question was a English or European sparrow?
Michelle B