Q: Why would what the OP is trying to say be written in such a way that it might be read by people not native to this Board as a confrontational challenge to posters on other Boards to a Board War?
Couldn’t he just have asked if we think we are above or below average without listing websites? (Websites that might have people who’d take what he is trying to say… personally???)
If you’re asking if I’m trying to pick a fight with DU or Tumblr, I’m not. I just listed a bunch of places that I thought many Dopers would disdain as fairly low-brow sites. I’m not going to run over to Breitbart and let them know that some people on a website they’ve probably never heard of think they’re not as smart as those people. I can’t imagine they’d care if I did.
If memory serves, we’ve had a few polls over the years regarding the average level of education. Not that self-reporting is completely reliable in this, but it’s a start.
As others already said, the board’s got good culture, moderation, and diversity of expertise to tackle most subjects in a non-juvenile manner. That fabled ability to string two sentences together is much overlooked in a lot of the other places the OP listed.
“Cecil Adams is the world’s most intelligent human being. We know this because: (1) he knows everything, and (2) he is never wrong.”
Enough said …
The moderation really keeps this place from descending into another “How is babby formed?” cesspool.
But the posters run the intellectual gamut. Occasionally someone will say something that will remind of the worst subreddit. But I don’t have to worry about those type of posts taking over an entire thread. We do a good job of moderating ourselves, I think.
The conversations in GD used to be a lot more intellectually stimulating than they are now, IMHO. Back in the day, GD was where I’d spend most of my time posting and lurking. But now I just don’t find the threads all that interesting.
Hopeless fact junkies are the root of our culture. People who couldn’t leave the bookstore without A Thousand Perfectly Useless Facts even though we know that at least half of those are already contained in any of the other fifty such books we already own. The internet was the best thing ever happened to us because we can look it up right now, at once!
It is the habit of people who want new facts, new thoughts that change what we think, what we believe. Its gives us physical pleasure to learn something new, that “aha!” moment is a minor flood of endorphins that is totally addictive…
“Hi, my name is 'luc, and I am a fact geek…”
“Hi, and your name is Luci, because we said so, and yes, so are we!..”
And the hidden theme of this thread is “How come you guys won’t accept The Journal of Crapulous Bullshit as a cite?” Because its doo-doo, and we have no patience with it. (I wasn’t born a lefty, I became one because I got tired of losing arguments. Plus, tighty-rightys have no funny.)
The Tree of Cecilism must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of nitwits. It is a sacrifice we stand ready to make, 'cause it ain’t gonna be us!
If it will help, I’ll move over from here to Reddit to post. That should rise the average IQ of both places. 
Friggin’ re-post!
waht?
Nope, don’t do that. We may not always agree, but considerate discourse is always appropriate.
We know you were just yanking our chain, right? Right? Uh…John - still there?
I think so.
Reddit has some really smart people on it, but I think that is because Reddit has so many users, probably at least 1,000x more regulars than SD does. So in that pool there are going to be more smart people.
Per capita though, I’d say this board has the most smart people relative to total users of any forum I’ve been on (but I’m sure forums devoted exclusively to science for example would have more than this board).
I once invited a friend to post on SD. He only lasted a few weeks because he said his arguments kept getting torn apart and he didn’t like it. He said he didn’t have the time to debate on the level people here debated, to investigate his opinions enough to make them stand up to scrutiny. So I guess in that way there is an incentive for people who do not want their views questioned to not stay here, whereas people who enjoy that are drawn here (although we are an echo chamber about politics).
Also regarding that friend, I met him on a different forum devoted to athletics. On that forum I was one of the smartest people there. On here I’m just another smart person who gets lost in the noise. On other forums I tend to be considered pretty intelligent, but here I really don’t stand out. So in that regards, I guess it is like the difference in being a really good high school student vs just another college student. The competition is better, and the quality of debate here is better than anywhere else I’ve seen.
Reddit!!
I think it’s contextual in many respects. The standards here certainly do an admirable job of keeping the tone elevated.
I think the “SDMB is full of smart people” comes from the fact there’s at least one person here who’s a genuine expert in a given field and because of the smaller userbase, it’s easy to stand out as “The law-talking expert” or “the mechanic” or “the computer scientist” or “the alchemist” or whatever.
I spend a bit of time on military history forums and there are folks there who have forgotten far more about any aspect of military history than I’ll ever know, for example - despite the fact I am also a military historian and considered fairly knowledgeable in my speciality areas.
Just cut the crap and say what you think. Or is it more fun to poke at the answers you get?
Need answer soon, asking for a friend.
This is a common theme on many boards. I call it the maturation of all things, whether a hobby, snopes or a general purpose message board. In the beginning, things are more fun because they are quite often new and new things are constantly being thrown into the matter. But, there are a finite number of new things to be found and discovered about a subject. In a matter of years, the newness and joy of discovery turns to the mundane and repetitive. And so it goes.
Samclem, that’s true, but fortunately there are at least a few kids out there who think we’re an impressive bunch of folks – so maybe the future for this board isn’t so gloomy:
I’d say the moderation keeps the level relatively smart here. I’ve rarely been to Breitbart & never to Stormfront, so I can’t answer. Perhaps the OP can give us some germane examples from his preferred sites.
Calling yourself smart does not impress.
Of course, having your flunkies do the job might prove you’re “smart” in some ways. Just as Trump claimed he was “smart” to not pay taxes…
I think a lot of it is that the SDMB is a… general(?) message board, and as such, keeping the tone elevated is an achievement in its own right. It’s not so hard to find on special-interest boards- I can think of a military-oriented one, an automotive one(!) and a couple of Reddit subs that are similarly elevated.
But for every one of those, there are probably three or four message boards or comment sections that are populated by the most illiterate and ignorant fools who say and believe the dumbest stuff, and who can’t actually discuss and just name-call.
A good example would be economy-oriented threads. On most boards, they devolve into idiocy, because the ignorant refuse to listen, and usually start calling names before anything edifying comes to light. We have the same variety of people ignorant of economics and market forces here, but the tone of the board, and the awareness that our mods are paying attention prevent that, and the discussions sometimes actually teach someone something, or at worst, let both sides understand where they’re coming from.
But that doesn’t equate to smarter, just nicer and more civil.
Compared to the general population, it seems that Dopers in general - or at least the most active Dopers - are disproportionately high income, high educated, or work in difficult fields (i.e., airline pilot, engineer, etc.) So I could certainly believe that the SDMB is highly intelligent.
As best I can tell from my own limited forays, the moderation at Stormfront selects for conformity, not intelligence.