If you think discussing an album that someone rates highly with them to be painful it does make me wonder why join a forum in the first place.

That's the idea of a forum anyway.
Wading through a lot of crap whilst having a lot of fun whilst running into gems now and then.
It's like a bootsale man. You walk hours and hours and then you find that mono recording of dylan's the times they are-a changing for $1. That's just great.

That's a good way to put it.

I've seen you use this term a bunch of times but am not sure what it means. What is a bootsale?

At the very least, I skim these threads and always start from the first new post. If it looks interesting, I take note. If not, I move on. But I love these threads and don't use them just to post what I'm into. And when I do post something I'm into, it's in the hopes that people will take notice because I love to share the wealth. So I try to say something about it each time, whether it sparks discussion or not.

This makes me think of people on Facebook that post something once every couple weeks but you can tell they never bother to read or comment on other people's stuff.

It's probably British. It is the right term, I'm sure about that ;)
Probably you use 'flea market'?

Ah, I was picturing a yard sale but your "walking all day" remark makes a lot more sense in the context of a flea market.

hahaha, we have huge yard sales that go throughout entire villages here.
We even have ones that start at night :)

I skim through and only post sometimes - I usually piggy back and participate on other peoples threads - I'm a reality TV junkie so I'm into what others are doing lol

I only post so I have no idea what we're talking about.