Ok, you seem to know the numbers. Back in 2005 TubaDiva said:
That was during pay to post, I believe. 08-22-2005. What are the numbers now? Where are you getting the change in age range from?
The bottom of the SDMB page says 3,495 active members. And everyone who’s been posting here for 20 years is now 20 years older than they were then.
I strongly suspect confirmation bias here.
But it doesn’t really matter IMHO. Not to be a Debbie Downer, but even if some plug isn’t suddenly pulled this place is likely to see a slow-spiralng death. It’s just a dinosaur format in terms of social media, which is why you see so many Boomers and GenX’ers hanging out here ;). This could the friendliest place on the earth and it would probably still die.
Just as with your own mortality it is probably best to just accept fate, maybe delay the inevitable how you can and enjoy what time you have left.
Then I say you should start one.
Ok, can’t argue with math. We gained 20 members over the last 13 years. And people say message boards aren’t a growth industry.
Right. It’s not that younger people are going to message boards with avatars and the ability to call other posters “cunts.” It’s that they are not going to message boards at all.
When we first got married, 45 years ago, my wife and I attended the sort of lectures and meetings in which we were the youngest people there by ten years. Almost every one of those is gone today – and in the few that aren’t we’re still the youngest people by ten years.
Everybody in those groups talks about attracting younger members, maybe by using that social media thing they hear so much about. That will never happen without younger members driving the change. And why should younger people want to hang around those 45 years older than them? I wouldn’t have done so back in the day. They didn’t even know anything about rock music!
There’s no reason why the SDMB couldn’t hang around for years, or a decade. The vast majority of even our older members will live and be intellectually alert for that long. It could even survive a change to new ownership. But it’s not going to suddenly become the hip new thing. And if that miraculously happened, my bet is that none of us still here would survive the experience.
I wonder if a group of us could purchase and run the board ourselves. It sounds like it may be a profitable enterprise. There may be some here who could even fill Cecil’s shoes, and there are those of us who can easily handle the technical end of things.
We members will still be here…but what about the hamsters?
Somebody has to do the technical stuff with the computers, and somebody has to manage the finances.
So far, we remain in total darkness about how this will be done. We’ve had a few vague comments from a moderator, and even from Ed himself. But rather than fighting our ignorance about it, they seem to be intentionally keeping us ignorant.
I just don’t get it. We aren’t a big business. Why all the secrecy?
In the business world, there are lots of reasons for keeping secrets. Financial secrets are kept from the employees and the stockholders, so people won’t run away, doing damage when the company needs them to overcome difficult circumstances. Secrets are kept through non-disclosure contracts among senior staff, to prevent leaks to competitors, etc.
But it seems to me that secrecy is hardly relevant to this message board. What is there to hide?
My guess is that things will keep running on autopilot for a couple months, until the first glitch happens, and nobody is there to fix it.
Please, somebody…fight my ignorance.
The numbers may not lie, but your interpretation does. That number from 2005 was paying members, the current number is people who’ve recently logged on or posted.
On the contrary, Cecil, you should wear that as a mantle of honor because it shows how great a job you did at initiating the process to begin with! :o
Why do you assume anyone knows? From my experience working with both government agencies and a large corporation, I kinda just default to the proposition that hardly anybody knows shit and most people are winging it.
Three months from now:
Sun media cog #1: “Hey, didn’t we used to have some kinda internet message board thingy?”
Sun media cog #2: “Uhhh…maybe?”
#1: “Wasn’t it supposed to make money? Should we check?”
#2: “I guess. I’ll take a look after lunch.”
Another two months after that:
#1: “Pass the shao mai…Oh, hey - did you ever check on that internet thingy?”
#2 “There is only one left and you already had three! Yeah, I asked the head janitor on floor 3 about it last week. He said far as he could tell it still seemed to be making money.”
#1 “How much money?”
#2 “About $17 a month.”
#1 “Do we need to do anything to run it?”
#2 “Not much, really.”
#1 “Eh. Okay, well fuck it then. Let’s talk about those quarterlies. And I only had two - they must have shorted us on the dumplings!”
I think this is far more accurate then all the other guesses.
Strength through ignorance? 
Do you work where I work?
mmm
Fuck, yeah, which is why I made my SDSAB suggestion.
Fuck, yeah. Ed, you done a helluva job by not doing much for a long time. Time to pass the baton to somebody who ain’t me. You have a helluva team here. Use it.
you know youd think it would make the news … tho I mean one of the longest running original columns in America ……
Maybe there could be some more staff reports. Otherwise, will the Straight Dope Science Advisory Board moniker be retired?
We sure as hell ain’t holy, Holey, maybe…
If DeVito plays Cecil, we’d have to get Arnie to play Ed.
MsWhatsit here. (Changed my username when a tweet of mine went viral and I was briefly worried about being doxed.)
I’ve been reading the books since I was in junior high. Will never forget the moment my friend’s mom picked up one of the books to see what I was reading and turned straight to the column about pigs and corkscrew penises.
The Dope is dead; long live the Dope!
You have to supply your own mortarboard.
(You think I made that up.)