I've been having a lot of excellent conversation with somebody I met on /r/r4r last week (shocking, right?). We got on the topic of what we're doing here and how we operate here, and they mentioned that they have a process by which they decide who to contact. Just as their quote above, they were saying they were hesitant to reach out to somebody that they can't learn more about via post history. They wait and see if these throwaways post anything else, but they usually decide not to open communication.

Advice: DON'T USE THROWAWAYS. Use your main account or, if you're worried about privacy, an alternate account.

Fact is, there are a lot of people around here that have their own way of deciding who to talk to and who not to talk to, and that mostly comes down to how these OPs present themselves. If there's not enough information in the post body, users will check out the OP's history. If there's nothing there, well... every individual user needs to decide for themselves if the information present in the post is adequate enough to justify sending a PM.

A user's post/comment history is sort of like a profile. Others can gleam hobbies, interests, lifestyles, philosophies, background, favorite subreddits, and - most important to a place like /r/r4r - conversation style.

Again, if you're all about privacy, create an alt account. Continue to participate in conversation, but be careful not to give yourself away. I figure it'd be super easy since, as a random example, nobody in /r/SkincareAddiction needs to know where you live in order to know about how you moisturize your hands.

So convert those throwaways to alt accounts and get posting and PMing!

EDIT: Almost forgot - some people tend to forget their throwaway. So those that actually enjoy OP's post and send PMs get ignored, especially if OP only gives the post a short time to generate interest.

In anticipation of common responses:

Well, that's just too much work. / Ain't nobody got time fo dat.

Actually, it's not at all. It takes just as much work to create a throwaway as it does to create an alt. It takes just as much work to log in/out of the throwaway as it would an alt. If you were going to create a post/comment anyway, it would take just as much work to do it under the alt as it would the throwaway.

But I subscribe to and participate in a lot of controversial subs.

Then don't post in those subs on your alt account.

You can't tell me what to do! You're not my dad!

I can offer advice to a bunch of faceless online strangers, but not a single one of them is obligated to do as I say, no.

PS: I am your father.

WEEEEEEEEEEELL, LOOK WHO'S BITTER AND LASHING OUT!!! LOOK, FRIEND-O, JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN'T GET THE GRAB-ASS YOU FEEL SO ENTITLED TO, DOESN'T MEAN YOU NEED BE AN ASSHOLE TO ALL US ABOUT IT!!!

no

Eh, I enjoy myself. And if I can shed some light on this whole business to improve the community and improve the user experience, I'm ok with this.

Translation: My job is very boring D:

But I covet my personal information so hard that I'd rather not do anything.

Then... why are you here at all? You should perhaps consider meeting people through the classic channels like school, work, neighbors, and the bar up the street with the broken light that always has really seedy looking people smoking on the side of the building.