I’ve seen this under a couple of people’s names, the last one I saw was Unclebeer and it just got me to wondering.
Cheers
Rick
It stands for the Straight Dope Science Advisory Board. This title is reserved for people who occasionally write articles for Cecil.
I think some ex-Mods have also been granted this title, regardless of whether or not they write articles, but I’m not sure about this.
Under MY name, it means Straight Dope Science Advisory Board.
Under Uncle Beers name it means Straight Dope Shooters Against Bullshit. 
YMMV
Further information can be found at:
and
Moderators are ex officio members of the SDSAB, though not all write Staff Reports.
The non-moderator SDSAB are:
Chronos*
Colibri
Doug Yanega
Eutychus*
JillGat*
JYDog1
Karen Lingel
Knighthawk
manhattan*
McCaff
Q.E.D.
samclem
SDStaffKen
Son of Dex
Songbird
Una Persson
UncleBeer*
VegForLife
- ex-moderators. All have done at Staff Reports, some have done many.
All have done at least one Staff Report . . .
Just to avoid any misunderstanding: one Staff Report does NOT qualify a person for membership in the SDSAB. There have been plenty of Guest Contributors who have contributed reasonably often, who are not invited onto the Board itself.
With great responsibility, goes great obligation.
It can be a heavy burden indeed. If you’re not careful, Dex will ask you to write a Staff Report on something like the evolutionary origin of the butt-crack.
As Dex indiates, my comment only applied to the ex-moderators on the SDSAB. Sorry if it might have been misconstrued.
Interesting. While looking at an old thread I noticed that JillGat has a title of Straight Dope Science Advisory Board all spelled out. (See her profile here.)
I thought everyone on the SDSAB had their title expanded, but apparently not. Colibri, I don’t know about you, but I might feel a bit slighted. 
Seriously though, any reason for this? The only thing I can think of is that she had her title changed some time ago, and she was one of the people who had their title manually set quite a while ago. (Her profile says she hasn’t had any activity since June 2003.)
Sheesh. Forgive the tortured English in my post above. :rolleyes:
Dex is the one to ask, but I suspect that whoever entered the titles wrote the first few out, and then decided to hell with it and started entering the abbreviation. (I noted that Alphagene also had the title spelled out; I’m not sure if there are others. Evidently the order of entry was not alphabetical.)
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nope, mine was written out, as was QEDs, then it was changed. In one day, my title changed 4 times (Guest, Charter Member, Straight Dope Staff Science Advisory Board, and SDSAB). It’s also been “BANNED”* and “On Sabbatical” too, so maybe I have the record for the most title changes ever, at “6”.
[sub]*By mistake - very long story - I wasn’t really banned, but it said I was. I wasn’t supposed to post, but could if I wished. It felt like sitting in the back row at your own funeral.[/sub]
Cool, did they send a search boat up the Mississippi? And throw mercury-filled breadloaves in the water to find your body?
And I briefly had the unabbrievieated title, too, for the record. Why is anyone surprised to find something chaotic around here?
isn’t it more trouble to explain what SDSAB is everytime than to just copy and paste or just spell it out?
Damn you Chronos!!
This allusion was the very thing that went through my head when I read Una’s footnote. I got excited. Here was my chance to make a cool, literary reference.
But no. In the very next post you beat me to it. Damn.
Oh well. I’ll just bring flowers. I have plenty.
Hell, I dunno. I think it was pretty much random, and then someone decided not to spell it out because it took too much typing, and then … I mean, who knows. We thrive on chaos here, it’s like mother’s milk to us. I did suggest it made more sense to spell it out, so that newcomers might be given a clue, and I was told that it would be a good learning experience for them.
Butt-cracks? You think I would be so coarse as to ask a question about butt-cracks? … [sub]I don’t ask the questions, I just pull 'em from Cecil’s email. I couldn’t make that stuff up if I tried.[/sub]
why was that?
vinniepaz, if you’re interested, email una directly.
oh, very sorry. im not used to this type of setting in which you can just email people. most boards i post at frown on that type of thing. my apologies.
Weren’t we all “Members” pre-subscription?
You’re all members to me.
your humble TubaDiva