Temperamentally I've never been suited to lurking but my level of participation depends heavily on the interface.
I mean, I mailed email feedback to the author of the very first fanfic story I found and read, all giddy about having found online fanfic fandom - and though I never got an answer to that, I joined a mailing list the same day and started posting almost right away even though my English was way less fluent back then. (I only ever used it in school, undubbed TV and movies were hard to get, imported books way more expensive pre-Amazon, and had only visited an English speaking country once at that time and only briefly - my English only became fully fluent because I wanted so badly to talk to fandom.)
So I'm not shy at all (though as with pretty much everybody, specific stuff will start me on avoidance that escalated in social anxiety ways), but at the same time I found lists I also found newsgroups and only ever lurked there. Same with message board based forums. I found fandom fine on those when fandoms were mainly there, but never posted or commented even if I read a lot. Tumblr is like that for me too.
And wrt fic feedback I think you're right that peak-LJ was the exception rather than the rule. I mean, one reason why I usually dropped a comment on all LJ stories I enjoyed is that as paid user who got their own comments mailed this got me an easy copy of the story saved in my inbox which was the fastest way to get a decently formatted save. Now I download longer fanfic to my e-reader and it takes an extra step again to do more than Kudo or like, more so than even emailing back in ML days because I have to switch devices and interfaces rather than doing everything in my email client like back then.
no subject
I mean, I mailed email feedback to the author of the very first fanfic story I found and read, all giddy about having found online fanfic fandom - and though I never got an answer to that, I joined a mailing list the same day and started posting almost right away even though my English was way less fluent back then. (I only ever used it in school, undubbed TV and movies were hard to get, imported books way more expensive pre-Amazon, and had only visited an English speaking country once at that time and only briefly - my English only became fully fluent because I wanted so badly to talk to fandom.)
So I'm not shy at all (though as with pretty much everybody, specific stuff will start me on avoidance that escalated in social anxiety ways), but at the same time I found lists I also found newsgroups and only ever lurked there. Same with message board based forums. I found fandom fine on those when fandoms were mainly there, but never posted or commented even if I read a lot. Tumblr is like that for me too.
And wrt fic feedback I think you're right that peak-LJ was the exception rather than the rule. I mean, one reason why I usually dropped a comment on all LJ stories I enjoyed is that as paid user who got their own comments mailed this got me an easy copy of the story saved in my inbox which was the fastest way to get a decently formatted save. Now I download longer fanfic to my e-reader and it takes an extra step again to do more than Kudo or like, more so than even emailing back in ML days because I have to switch devices and interfaces rather than doing everything in my email client like back then.