So what can we do to draw in more younguns who wouldn’t get All Haig jokes?
Definitely avatars.
And emojis. Millions of emojis.
Kids, I’m serious. As of midnight we lunatics inherited the asylum, and we need to think about how we can keep it going.
I prefer to think that the fight has finally been won. It was clearly never meant to take forever. All the questions worth answering (and a staggering number that weren’t) have been answered. Now it’s just a matter of getting the ignorant to read the answers.
When I go to get my copy of the new book, I’m going to get an extra couple to send as gifts. Maybe I’ll send one to the White House; even the POTUS occasionally needs something special to throw in the fireplace on a cold night.
Tell each other “fuck you” and “you’re a cunt” in the Pit? 
Slam the board with flashing gifs and sparkles? Turn everything bubblegum pink and lime green?
I’m old, too, but I’m not too old to remember that Haig said “I am in control,” which sounded a bit worse than “in charge.”
Like a lot of people here, I discovered the Straight Dope in an alt-weekly paper (the Isthmus in Madison, Wisconsin). The sly, witty writing style and the weird illustrations made it a perfect fit with the paper’s countercultural vibe. Well, alt-weeklies are in decline, and the ones that are still around don’t seem all that “alternative.”
I’m also pessimistic about this board’s future; it’s corporate-owned, and message boards are increasingly seen as passé and not worth the trouble. The IMDB boards were very popular, and Amazon nuked them anyway. I also have fond memories of the Discovery Channel boards, which were huge; the thread for the Mythbusters plane-on-a-treadmill episode was something like 900 pages. All gone.
But I’ve been wrong about lots of stuff, and could be wrong about this too. I hope so.
This begs a question: are the boards in toto archived somewhere?
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Wait. Ed Zotti is not the Master? The board continues nonetheless? Talk about crisis of faith…gosh this consubstantiation of Father Son and Holy Dope was always a toughie.
Never read The Master in print, besides the reprinted columns here and his guiding spirit, naturally. And it’s been a pleasure to meet His Gormlessness.
The faith endures.
Do you mean the one to Shodan? 
Are we all just posting trivia to see if/when posting becomes impossible and the SDMB returns a 404 error? I mostly lurk, and did so for years before something compelled me to sign up and post, so I’ll really miss this place!
Anybody have any suggestions on what we might do, where we might meet, or how we might salvage some of the tattered remains of this community should that bleak day arrive? I mean, I couldn’t host a replacement Board, but I’m sure somebody can. If that becomes the only alternative, how might it happen and how could it be communicated?
I’d say keep posting here. More activity here shows the value of keeping the lights on.
No, because inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.
I haven’t seen any indication that this is going to happen any time soon, but if it does you’re welcome to use my board as a temporary rallying point. Another option would be to make an SDMB subreddit to point people to a new space. Setting up a replacement board would be pretty easy and relatively cheap, I’d be happy to help with that as well, should the time ever come. I don’t need to be involved after that, I’d be glad to hand the keys over once it’s all set up.
The point is that it’s the people who make this site a success, not the servers or the owners or the software.
That’s sweet but utterly silly. A message board has to draw people in and that doesn’t happen because a bunch of awesome people just randomly decide to start posting in it.
I hope you’ll post here. Be a participant. We’d be honored.
Meanwhile, if the unportended doom lands anyhow, can we all agree to come back to this very thread and nominate a destination to relocate ourselves to, so as not to become a fragmented diaspora?
How about Giraffe Boards?
Frankly, I was hoping you’d say that/make such an offer! I’ll be pleased to help with the “relatively cheap” cost, if it comes to that.
I’m a Charter Member on your board and there’s a lot of crossover of other people as well, but it would still grieve me to completely lose the - err - special flavor of this place. So I thank you.
Am I being whooshed? Because um, you know…that would be very very difficult.
I also would help with “relatively cheap”. However, some of my relatives are cheaper than others.** Giraffe**, what is a rough estimate of start-up and yearly costs? Say for a board roughly like yours?