My only problem is that I hate commenting unless I have something to add, which @ lesswrong.com is almost never
I was originally in your boat, and kind of still am.
I've found that the more I've been involved, the more I've had to contribute. At first my comments were kind of trite, but I got better. Commenting gives you good feedback, which you can then use to refine your points and knowledge so that you have more to contribute.
I find that actually helped me a lot: When I first got here, I probably wouldn't have contributed as much to the discussion, simply because I'm used to how a "normal, mainstream" community acts. Having a small obstacle to participation seems like a good way to ensure people are familiar with LessWrong specifically.
Eliezer Yudkowsky has passed an arbitrary milestone: 100,000 karma points on Less Wrong. Allow me just a moment to celebrate this like we celebrate other arbitrary milestones, like birthdays.
I think that Eliezer's karma score vastly under-rates his relative contribution to this site. For example, his score is only about 13x my own score, but I think it's obvious he has contributed far more than 13x as much value to this community as I have.
This is probably due to the fact that good posts today get far more upvotes than earlier good posts, when I suspect the community was smaller. For example, my rather simple and insignificant post Secure Your Beliefs received 34 upvotes, which is more than almost any of Eliezer's epic and brilliant posts of the past have received, for example Terminal Values and Instrumental Values.
So at this arbitrary milestone, I'd just like to say a quick word to Eliezer:
Thanks.
You've done a lot.
Okay, that's all! I hope this doesn't come across as "sucking up to the Dear Leader," but instead as the sincere appreciation it is. There is a good reason I list Eliezer as one of my heroes-even-though-we-shouldn't-have-'heroes' over here.