Not only are weekends and holidays sometimes a little slow, people use the forums in different ways, and there really isn't a formal "welcome wagon."
The introduction forum generallly doesn't generate much commentary, probably for a lot of reasons, but it really boils down to that's a lot of people don't even see the introductions, and even those who do may not say anything if they don't have anything interesting to say. I know that I don't spend much if any time in the introductions forums, so I usually don't even see the introductions.
Instead, I meet most people through the discussions forums. Even then, I tend to look for posts that are discussing a topic and try to only respond when I think I have something to add or something interesting to say. If "Hi," "nice to meet you," or "I (dis)agree," are all I can think of to say, I usually don't say anything.
I usually check the threads I'm posting in, or will check new posts or today's posts and only post in threads that are extremely interesting/important topics to me - because as it is, I end up devoting several hours per day to just to READING posts.
If I responded by posting to every thread I read, I would have to spend 24/7 doing so. Instead, I read all I find interesting, then decide how much time I have to post, and decide which posts I'm going to respond to, because I don't have the time to respond to them all. I don't even have the time to respond to even 10% of what I would like to.
Discussion threads do tend to get a lot more views and posts than threads on common or frequent topics (and that includes general introductions).
So you'll get and give a lot more support on the discussion and topic threads than in introductions - but even so it can take a while and you may have to occasionally repeat yourself. I've posted threads that got few or no responses and then days, months, or even years later gotten more responses - so I've learned to be patient and to repeat myself .
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