# An SDMB Timeline **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [May 15, 2012, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-sdmb-timeline/622027 "2012-05-15T22:35:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2012, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-sdmb-timeline/622027/121 "2012-05-22T16:45:32Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > **Wombat** announced that at 2:00 PM on that day. > > A failed attempt at a poll was initiated at 3;11 by **Brainiac** ::cough. Don’t say BAT. ::cough > > [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=533080&highlight=poll](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=533080&highlight=poll) > > At 3:51, **blondbear** successfully got it off the ground. > > [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=11584252&highlight=poll#post11584252](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=11584252&highlight=poll#post11584252) You da man, **samclem**! And you can still vote in that second one, because I just did! It’s perhaps of minimal value since you still have to investigate whether they’re “for real” (as in automated for counting votes) or just “polls” in the sense of asking opinions. etc., but if you use the Keyword search on “poll:” in Titles Only and limit the search for “4 years ago and newer” and “by thread start date” in ascending order, you can get a listing that suggests that less than 700 polls have been started since **Wombat** ’s date. Searching those one at a time for “number of voters” should help zoom in on that trivium. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2012, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-sdmb-timeline/622027/122 "2012-05-22T16:50:19Z")
> [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](#): > > I think [Guy Stuff](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=18972) was the first 1000-post thread. > The creation of [Need answer fast!](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=442645) Inside is a link to skydiving thread that was the inspiration. There had been a smattering of ‘need answer fast’ threads previously, but this was what cemented it as an SDMB meme. Hilarious jewels, for sure, **Earl Snake-Hips Tucker**. Your finds are turning this thread into a “truly great thread” in my estimation. That “need answer fast” thing is a hoot! ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e4f/32.png) [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_is_the_new_Analog)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2012, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-sdmb-timeline/622027/123 "2012-05-22T23:04:24Z")
> [@Zeldar](#): > > You da man, **samclem**! And you can still vote in that second one, because I just did! You might be confusing cause and effect there… 🙂 Have you covered “User who started the most threads?” ETA: I guess that’s more in the “SDMB trivia” realm, not a timeline. -D/a ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-sdmb-timeline/622027/124 "2012-05-23T01:13:29Z")
> [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](#): > > Have you covered “User who started the most threads?” > > ETA: I guess that’s more in the “SDMB trivia” realm, not a timeline. > -D/a Not by my definition. Although doubtless a bit of trivia, that sort of high point or superlative is needed to flesh out the timeline. And I have asked in other threads if anybody knows who owns that distinction, along with other such accomplishments. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-sdmb-timeline/622027/125 "2012-05-23T01:21:31Z")
Geeky stuff: The Straight Dope Message Board in its original incarnation here (as opposed to on AOL) used a board software called “ubb” which stood for Ultimate Bulletin Board or something similar. We went through at least two iterations of ubb board software before hopping ship to vBulletin. There was a version in use here before August of 1999 and a later version that we switched to around that time. The board switched to vBulletin in the vicinity of April 2000. vBulletin imported all the uBB-era posts so we did not lose any posts. Oddly, the uBB posts between August 1999 and April 2000 came through fully intact; but the even older uBB posts made prior to August 1999, although they’d looked fine in the later version of uBB, showed up in vBulletin with “Guest” for the poster even though they’d been posted by genuine registered users. We’ve been through many iterations of vBulletin since that point but not of those changes has messed anything up as far as I know, except briefly (custom smilies disappearing, special markup tags ceasing to work, etc) after which they’d get fixed by Jerry the tech God. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-sdmb-timeline/622027/126 "2012-05-23T01:31:02Z")
> [@NoClueBoy](#): > > Is there any way at all to read from The Winter Of Our Missed Content? > [@Zeldar](#): > > I have no idea how to retrieve that data, but I would point out that that specific period is not alone in the gaps category. The discrepancy between the Post Count on the Main Page and the “latest post” is off by over 100,000. Lost posts for whatever reason must be partly to account for that. > > If you look over that latest list of Post Numbers you’ll see > > [A poll about ... "EX"es - #21 by Autolycus - In My Humble Opinion - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8500002) > 04-24-2007, 03:02 AM > > and that’s because 8500000 is an invalid Post ID. There are many like that. > [@NoClueBoy](#): > > Hmmm… Singles would be spam posts removed, but those large blocs… interesting. > [@Zeldar](#): > > Once we deduce the actual size of the The Winter in post count, we could see what the odds are that the remaining single missing posts can be accounted for as spam. It’s not an unreasonable assumption. **AHunter3** , can you shed any light on this issue? Just exactly how much content was lost and exactly when? ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-sdmb-timeline/622027/127 "2012-05-23T01:41:39Z")
Well, [some light](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=143790). The link in the 2nd post (mine) was to the board-in-exile where all the posts made while we were in diaspora were made. THAT much of the Winter of Our Missed Content was available for quite some time. [Here](http://web.archive.org/web/20020604015353/http://bb.bbboy.net/straightdope) is the WayBack Machine’s best offering of the BBBoy board-in-exile. You can actually read some of the posts. Does that help? Edited to Add: there were some posts that _had been made_ on the regular Straight Dope before the hack-job, which were never ever recovered; when the real Straight Dope came back online, it had been rolled back by several weeks. Those posts are gone forever. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-sdmb-timeline/622027/128 "2012-05-23T01:55:47Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > Well, [some light](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=143790). > > The link in the 2nd post (mine) was to the board-in-exile where all the posts made while we were in diaspora were made. > > THAT much of the Winter of Our Missed Content was available for quite some time. [Here](http://web.archive.org/web/20020604015353/http://bb.bbboy.net/straightdope) is the WayBack Machine’s best offering of the BBBoy board-in-exile. You can actually read some of the posts. > > Does that help? > > Edited to Add: there were some posts that _had been made_ on the regular Straight Dope before the hack-job, which were never ever recovered; when the real Straight Dope came back online, it had been rolled back by several weeks. Those posts are gone forever. Quite a bit more help than I expected! Do you know the dates when the posts are just plain lost altogether? Is it the gap described in [this post?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15070410&postcount=27) ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-sdmb-timeline/622027/129 "2012-05-23T02:02:03Z")
That **WeirdDave** post, “I made the first post, WHOO!” plus the time frame in which it was made… yeah, that sounds about right. Board went down early 2002. Got rolled back (some posts lost forever). It’s entirely believable that all January and early February 2002 posts were the ones that got lost. Meanwhile we posted at the board-in-exile from about a week after the board went down until it was restored. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-sdmb-timeline/622027/130 "2012-05-23T02:09:56Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > Well, [some light](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=143790). > > The link in the 2nd post (mine) was to the board-in-exile where all the posts made while we were in diaspora were made. > > THAT much of the Winter of Our Missed Content was available for quite some time. [Here](http://web.archive.org/web/20020604015353/http://bb.bbboy.net/straightdope) is the WayBack Machine’s best offering of the BBBoy board-in-exile. You can actually read some of the posts. The threads weren’t too long, were they? Smashie needs to come back. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-sdmb-timeline/622027/131 "2012-05-23T02:40:35Z")
The board moderator that y’all have not found mucn info on, **Melin** , was the epicentre of the first large-scale schism on the board. It was the first time that we had a huge family quarrel and such significantly hurt feelings and adversarial polarization that large numbers of people left the board over it. There have been two subsequent periods when there was a mass exodus from the board: the debut of Pay-to-Post (lots of people posted farewells and left and did not come back when the board reverted to its current form) and the more recent fracas over vocabulary and what could and could not be posted without incurring intervention, especially in the BBQ Pit, which led to two spinoff boards, DoMeBo and the Giraffe Board. There was also an even earlier event that lost us a lot of board members all at one time: the move from AOL to here! A double handful of folks who had been very active on the AOL board never really set up camp here. Some of them retained links to the General Questions forum on the AOL Board and continued to post there months (perhaps years) after there were no viable links to the AOL Board’s front page. Give a shout-out if you remember **HpstrDufuz** , **RangerJeff** , **Kiltgrrl** … ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-sdmb-timeline/622027/132 "2012-05-23T03:13:02Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > The board moderator that y’all have not found mucn info on, **Melin** , was the epicentre of the first large-scale schism on the board. A funny (to me, anyway) coda to the exodus from the Melin aftermath was they invaded another board that was a kindred spirit to SDMB. The reception was. . . cool, to say the least. A few of the AOLers grumbled about how when the board went off AOL they had lost their “vibrant community.” I suppose that meant, “there goes the neighborhood.” All the Internet riff-raff was about to invade their insular world. Similarly, the “other” board had just upgraded their software coincidental with the SDMB exodus. I don’t know the terminology,but they were using very low-tech messageboard software earlier, and had just updated to either UBB or VBulletin, so it had a much closer feel to SDMB. While no one was a jerk about it on the [other board](http://message.snopes.com/), there was a definite air of “well, there goes the neighborhood.” Their small, insular group was being overrun by a bunch of self-imposed outcasts. But around the same time, though, Opal upgraded her own system, and that’s where they ended up, after it was clear they had overstayed their welcome, such as it was. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-sdmb-timeline/622027/133 "2012-05-23T06:46:18Z")
Great job on things so far. I can provide some background on Melingate and the Left Behind invasion if they are wanted. You’re missing one Admin who rarely posts but whose work is vital: **jdavis** AKA Jerry the Tech God, the guy who kept this board running back when the server was an antiquated clunker running a version of vBulletin something like 4.1.3 when then-current version was 6.1.2 and powered by superannuated sloths because the cost of hamster chow was too high. WE forget about Jerry… until things go wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-sdmb-timeline/622027/134 "2012-05-23T12:30:30Z")
We do have a tendency to leave Jerry off the staff lists because he’s really not in the same league with the rest of us. Some of us (e.g., Xash) are über techs, but Jerry’s the only one that gets inside the hardware and the databases to manipulate them. He and Ed are also a paid employees, unlike the rest of the SDMB staff. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-sdmb-timeline/622027/135 "2012-05-23T12:41:53Z")
He’s also nano sized, allowing him to actually “get inside” the tech. Many people don’t know that. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-sdmb-timeline/622027/136 "2012-05-23T12:57:46Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > Great job on things so far. I can provide some background on Melingate and the Left Behind invasion if they are wanted. > > You’re missing one Admin who rarely posts but whose work is vital: **jdavis** AKA Jerry the Tech God, the guy who kept this board running back when the server was an antiquated clunker running a version of vBulletin something like 4.1.3 when then-current version was 6.1.2 and powered by superannuated sloths because the cost of hamster chow was too high. WE forget about Jerry… until things go wrong. [quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:134, topic:622027”] We do have a tendency to leave Jerry off the staff lists because he’s really not in the same league with the rest of us. Some of us (e.g., Xash) are über techs, but Jerry’s the only one that gets inside the hardware and the databases to manipulate them. He and Ed are also a paid employees, unlike the rest of the SDMB staff. [/QUOTE] Since there’s already a problem with the “Mod Dates:” issue and whether other categories or designations ought to be included, is there some other group of “behind the scenes” and ongoing support prople we should at least mention? ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-sdmb-timeline/622027/137 "2012-05-23T13:50:40Z")
> [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](#): > > A funny (to me, anyway) coda to the exodus from the Melin aftermath was they invaded another board that was a kindred spirit to SDMB. > > The reception was. . . cool, to say the least. After the AOL board started to shut down, that’s how those of us on alt.fan.cecil-adams (on the Usenet) felt when a poster here (and from the AOL board) tried to invade the Usenet singlehandedly. She came waltzing into alt.fan.cecil-adams and announced that ALL the AOLies would be joining us and o golly! we’d get along just fine if we did what they wanted! They had things like labeling threads with “MPSIMS” and everything will be just peachy if our existing group changed to fit their needs! She was flamed into oblivion (it was a pretty fact-based, “Debunk urban legends” type group so the fluffy crap didn’t fit) and after stomping away in a huff, proceeded to start her own SDMB group on the usenet that lasted about 15 minutes after going through the arduous process of creating it. See [here](http://groups.google.com/group/alt.fan.cecil-adams/browse_thread/thread/db1c6d5b6c5f572c/47a1586add450d82?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=opalcat+group:alt.fan.cecil-adams#47a1586add450d82) and [here](http://groups.google.com/group/alt.fan.cecil-adams/browse_thread/thread/8ed23a0c986b1a1/65351fafa087aed2?hl=en&q=group%3Aalt.fan.cecil-adams+author%3Aopalcat&lnk=ol&) for two usenet threads I could dig up from the aftermath of the attempted invasion. PS–keep in mind that all the “Our culture is different, that’s why we need our OWN newsgroup” thing was _after_ the attempted invasion where the alt.fan.cecil-adams types were told that we had to conform to AOL culture when they invaded. Total 180 shift. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-sdmb-timeline/622027/138 "2012-05-23T14:08:05Z")
Oh, yeah, the alt.fan.cecil.adams and the misc.facts.straight.dope groups–those were the real Cloud Minders. I was always under the impression that they didn’t even recognize outsiders. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-sdmb-timeline/622027/139 "2012-05-23T14:13:57Z")
Heh–they didn’t. And they were looked down upon with scorn by the REAL elitists: the urban legends group (I don’t remember the usenet group name). Those guys were hardcore and thought alt.fan.cecil-adams was fluffy. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-sdmb-timeline/622027/140 "2012-05-23T15:49:46Z")
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