Now, on the subject of links, I believe Hongfire had gone down for a small while due to copyright issues, what with the site being used to post download links to paid games on DLSite & all that. Considering that, it's no wonder you see that more on Anime-sharing.
Actually, I'm currently wondering if perhaps a good chunk of the lurkers come from Anime-Sharing, regularly posting here, where they have the skills to be helpful to the community?
Anyways, I digress.
You might not be able to tell, but we've spoken a few times.
"Linkerman" should ring a bell 
..Now, where was I..? Oh, yes.
Dude, if you check the date at which I joined Hongfire and the date at which I started actively posting & modding... There's a bit of a gap.
2010 to 2011, I only passed by to ask questions relating to issues and/or requests surrounding 3DCG mods.
I used my account for nothing else.
I was about before that, around 2008, but hadn't made an account since I didn't need to post in any way.
I was basically one of those non-contributive lurkers you spoke of.
At that time, I thought the community surrounding the games was surprisingly nice, and decided that I'd try to contribute if I had anything I considered of worth to contribute.
I never truly cared much about making pictures from the games or sharing characters, kind of felt cheap to me for some reason.
Now, we travel to 2011.
Tried modding @HomeMate, @AG2 and SB3.
Failed horribly, stayed away doing other things for a while.
PPD comes out. I see negative reviews whilst the wheel of grief turns.
I decide to wait it out until a game I'd like would come out.
That would turn out to be SBPR.
At the time, I had tackled using 3d-coat and Sculptris, but had no proper modeling program experience.
I saw SB3UGS come about, decided to try figuring out how to use it on my own (Hense, still lurking, not asking questions, ect.)
During that time, I failed a few times at importing hair and accessories to the game, which was my first goal.
Started leaving messages on boards, giving constructive criticism where I could, lazily posting here and there.
At some point, I stumbled upon a mod that was never completed; A mod that was meant to let you import your own head models to the game from the in-game menus after dragging& dropping it to the proper folder.
I mentionned how I'd have used it to modify the game's character expressions since I found them incredibly uncanny.
Enimaroah responded, told me that I could still do it, and that I could go to mod discussion for help.
Note that through all this, whilst the mods were for my personal use, I had always planned on releasing whatever I'd have put together, unless it was something as simple as disabling the poncho and putting the camisole to its own ID.
... I've probably lost the point of this huge-ass monologue at this point, but it's just to tell you that it's not because somebody lurks around, only asking for things here and there, that they're just going to abandon the place a la "Haha, see ya suckers!" type-way.
The best you can do is to redirect them to help, to provide the knowledge required for them to be able to do what they're asking for by themselves. To teach proper independence and altruism, ect ect.
... I've been writing this post for a little while now, not quite sure if it makes complete sense
