How did you hear about fluther and what made you decide to come here for the first time?

I never heard of Fluther. Fluther found me when I decided to ask the Internet about woodpeckers.
I love forums, but had not been a regular member of a good one in years.
Aside from getting some good answers very quickly (for topics more serious than woodpeckers!!), and the very clean and cute design of the website, what really made me stick around was that some friendly Jellies sent me messages to welcome me within days of my joining. That was so nice and I try to pay it forward.

I was taking a hike deep in the mountains. The pine trees rose tall all around me, making the air smell of citrus. I had the feeling I was being followed. I kept seeing little hobbit like creatures wearing bowties and plusfours. It was kind of creepy.

But it was cool, until this giant Mastadon stood up right in front of me.

“But Mastadons are extinct,” I said.

“Do I look extinct?” The mastadon asked.

“Fuck! A talking mastadon!” I have to admit, I was not at my wittiest, but how would you respond to a talking mastadon?

“So listen dude. I need you to remember something. Can you do that?”

I nodded mutely.

“dubbayu, dubbayu, dubbayu…”

“Whoa, are you giving me a web address?”

“Shutup asshole… and believe me you are gonna be one fine ass… and listen, ‘cause I’m only gonna say this once and then I’m gonna disappear.”

“Dissa…”

“Shut. The. Fuck. Up. And listen.”

“WWW.FLUTHER.COM”

And then, sure enough, he disappeared. Without even a pop, like a soap bubble.

It’s amazing that I remembered, given my memory issues, but when you hear the sermon on the mount, you kinda remember it.

And here I am.

And that’s my avatar, too.

I was performing some intensive research on the tensor tympani muscles in the middle ear. I found Fluther on Google, and I joined so that I could participate in a thread.

I was doing some creative writing and had a question about demolition sites and what smells, sights and the like I would find on one. I got a fabulous answer from a very wonderful, dog loving jelly (amongst other good answers) and so asked more questions. I had and have not visited other Q & A sites.

Serious jet lag browsing. haha
I had been vacationing in asia and arrived home after a 13 hour nonstop flight into SFO at midnight and another 2.5 hour drive home.
I was completely flat lined the next day and stumbled across Fluther.
My joke about the longest case of jet lag in the history of man.

It was a hot summer weekend in 2007. I was avoiding the oppressive conditions by hiding in my bedroom with the window air conditioner cranked up. In my hand was this tiny, amazing device that had entered the world just a month before. It could do so much, yet the developers were still trying to get a sense of that, and new web apps were being unveiled daily. There were web apps to help us find web apps! And that’s how I found i.fluther.com.

I had enjoyed Yahoo Answers in its beta stage, but left when the public invaded. I had not tried another Q&A site since. Fluther filled the void.

After a family member dragooned me, i stayed around for many reasons, one of them being the opportunity to spell “mastodon” correctly.

I happened onto Amazon’s Askville at the same time that escalating unpleasantness was causing a number of longer-term members to flee. This was their destination, and one or more of them posted links. I stayed around there for a month, had my fill of the crabbing and complaining (and egregious lack of moderation), and then followed them here.

Ok, @gailcalled. Let’s hear your mastadon story, only spelled correctly. Tell me about you and mastadons. I bet you never even met one. Oh God, I just love spelling mastadon incorrectly.

When my beloved Answerbag did a makeover and turned themselves into douchebag, one of our more intrepid and loud-mouthed ladies took it upon herself to launch a search for a superior social Q&A replacement for a site that had become no fun at all to use. She came back from her search to announce that Fluther.com made the grade. So I came over in the great Answerbag migration of 2009. I stayed. She eventually went back to Answerbag, I think.

@ETpro That’s my story as well.

Cherry tomatoes.